


Follow the White Rabbit

by Harihat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Dean, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aphrodisiacs, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Fuck Or Die, Hurt/Comfort, Knotting, M/M, Mpreg, Omega Castiel, Pregnant Castiel, Pregnant Sex, Shower Sex, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-04-02 01:52:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4041130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harihat/pseuds/Harihat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hospital AU: Omega Castiel Novak is on the cusp of his next big invention - an aphrodisiac drug that will help Omegas with fertility problems regain their libido and a normal sex life. It works, too. As he discovers when he accidentally overdoses himself with the whole damn bottle. Fortunately, Alpha and Paramedic Dean Winchester is on hand to help out.  Dean/Cas (Primary) with mentions of past Cas/Others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my new AU! I was going to tack the prologue onto Chapter One but decided it really needed to stand alone (Chapter One picks up earlier that day) so apologies it is a bit on the short side. Hope you enjoy xxx

**_ Castiel _ **

_When this is over_ , Cas thought to himself as he watched his toes slowly turn blue under the freezing spray of the shower, _I am going to make that rabbit into a tea cosy._

There wasn’t much call for tea cosies in a research laboratory, certainly not as much as there was for a pure bred, all-white lab rabbit, but he couldn’t honestly claim to be too bothered about that. Plus the little shit had it coming.

His arm throbbed right on cue. Yes, when he got his hands on that rabbit he was making it into a rabbit pie. A rabbit pie _and_ a tea cosy.

He tilted his head back and let the cold hit him all over again. _Bloody rabbits._ Later he might reconsider his opinion, wonder in all honesty what he would do if a big, scary scientist came at _him_ with a needle. He might conclude that he too would kick out and make the big and scary scientist accidentally inject themselves with a triple dose of their latest concoction and that the scientist would have bloody deserved it too. That might come later. For now his thoughts centred on the straight choice between tea cosies and furry white mittens.

“Cas?”

The voice barely carried over the thunderous pitter-pat of the water. “Cas, don’t you think you’ve had enough now?”

Dean Winchester did ask some stupid questions sometimes. Of course he hadn’t had enough cold water yet – he had yet to achieve his aim of freezing to death before he had to face the consequences of his actions. No doubt Dean would have an opinion on the matter. Something along the lines of it ‘not being as embarrassing as you think’. Dean Winchester had stupid opinions. It was every bit as embarrassing as Castiel thought and a good deal more mortifying besides.

Cas leaned back against the cool tiles and groaned at the heat rising in his face. It looked like there was a flaw in the tea cosy plan after all – he’d have to leave the showers, face Dean and die horribly of embarrassment before he could even get his hands on that blinking rabbit. He could already imagine the whole scenario going brilliantly; ‘Yes thanks Dean. Say, thank you for knotting my ass earlier, really appreciated that. Maybe you could do it again soon.’ Perhaps it would be safest to stay under the showers until hypothermia shut down every single one of his brain functions so he couldn’t feel he current level of utter humiliation any more.

“Cas, you’re going to give yourself pneumonia in a minute.”

He drew his knees up to his chest and did his best to ignore the protests of his poor, stretched out ass at the movement. Unwelcome memories flashed before his eyes. Any efforts to distract himself from mentally recapping precisely how he’d got into that state to begin with failed miserably. From now on, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to perform the simplest function without it somehow reminding him that Dean Winchester had spent his Thursday afternoon shift buried inside him and hadn’t complained once. His insides throbbed sympathetically at the memory.

“Dean, you don’t need to wait for me.” He called out at last. _Just go away and leave me to die of embarrassment. Or pneumonia. Or both. Seriously._

Even through the noise of the shower he heard Dean scoff. “Right. Like I’m going to let you take yourself home.”

Cas groaned and buried his face in his hands. Great. This just got better and better. Dean wanted to drive him home. Dean wanted to stare at him in a sympathetic manner whilst he did his best not to shrivel up and die in the passenger seat.  Dean probably also wanted to talk about what had happened in excruciating detail whilst offering platitudes about how they’d probably laugh about all of this in the future.

No. Pneumonia was quite clearly the best option here and he wasn’t in the mood to argue.

Unfortunately, as it was about to become painfully apparent, someone else was.

“I’m not leaving you.” Even through the shower wall, Cas was certain he had just folded his arms and set his jaw into a stubborn scowl. Great. He’d finally met a loyal, hot guy who wanted to take him home and _these_ were the circumstances. Someone up there was probably having a really good laugh at his expense.

He wiggled each of his toes in turn to ward off probable frostbite. “Then I’m not coming out.”

He was aware that he sounded about as mature as his three year old nephew after having his favourite stuffed hippo confiscated. It was testament to how embarrassed he already was that this particular thought didn’t make him feel even the tiniest bit worse.

“Cas. Be reasonable.”

“I _am_ being reasonable.”

He was 99% certain that Dean had just rolled his eyes to the heavens and muttered something along the lines of ‘give me strength’. That, or prepared to kick the wall in frustration. Possibly both.

“How, Cas? How are you being reasonable right now?”

“Because I have _reasons_ for not coming out.”

“Such as?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

Scratch that earlier thought. Even his toddler nephew would have considered that immature. The part of his brain which wasn’t dedicating all of its energies to working out how to hang himself with the shower attachment took the opportunity to point out that this sort of behaviour was very unlikely to get him any further with Dean Winchester. The former part of his brain insisted that since he couldn’t look at Dean ever, ever again without spontaneously combusting with humiliation, that was probably for the best.

There was a long pause. So long, in fact, that Cas began to wonder if Dean really had given up and gone away. The thought made his insides clench with a cold that had nothing to do with the shower spray.

“Cas. I told Crowley I would be responsible for you. If you don’t come out, I will come in there and carry you out.”

_Yes Please!_ A treacherous corner of his mind whispered. Cas hugged his knees to his chest and bid his brain to _please just shut up_.

“Fine. I’m coming.”

 


	2. Chapter One - Abaddon's Revenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your lovely comments on the prologue. I was super nervous about posting, so very surprised and happy to get them. This story is multi-POV, though once it gets going it is mostly Cas, Dean and Sam. Hope you enjoy!

**_ Balthazar _ **

When all of this was over, Balthazar decided, he was going to buy that rabbit a carrot. No, not just one carrot. A bag of carrots. A whole damn _field_ of carrots. Who would have thought that Test Subject number 3 (Balthazar liked to imagine that she was known as Abaddon to her rabbity friends) would manage what he had been trying to do for years and actually get his colleague laid.

Abaddon twitched her nose up at him from her position on his lap, demanding another ear scratch. She got two for her trouble.

“Clever girl.” Balthazar cooed, glad that there was no one around to hear him. “Clever, clever girl.”

From the first time he’d met Cas, on his second day at HEAVN (Hospital and Virility Enterprises Neo-Medical unit) he’d known that guy needed to loosen up. From the second day of knowing him he had made it his number one purpose as his assistant lab tech to get him laid at the first available opportunity. From around about the third day of knowing Cas, Balthazar had decided that the guy was the weirdest Omega he’d ever met.

Okay, so by his own standards, maybe Cas wasn’t that weird. But it seemed like the guy had no interest in sex at all sometimes. Hell, he’d never even seen him take his Heat Leave and that was in three years of knowing him. It didn’t quite add up to Balthazar, who would probably be thinking of mating at least a hundred times a day if he _didn’t_ work in pansexual sciences. Sure, Cas would talk about sex in the context of their work but his friend was damned if he could remember one instance of him showing a flicker of interest outside of that.

If anything, it made it even funnier that Cas had been the one to get jabbed with the latest batch they’d been preparing. Heat replacement drugs for Omega’s with post-partum sexual dysfunction. Or, to put it in his own words ‘juice that made you want to fuck everything in sight’.

The first moment he’d known it was going to be in interesting afternoon was the moment he heard Castiel’s shouted curse from the other side of the laboratory. Cas never swore, not even when Balth had dropped scalding iron filings on him that time. It was probably as much out of morbid curiosity as concern that he’d sprinted the length of the room to grab his colleague before he could hit the ground.

“Cas? Cassie? What happened?” he’d asked, trying to rearrange the other man’s dead weight more securely into him arms. “She bite you?”

It was then that he’d spotted the empty syringe next to Abaddon’s cage. He’d swear later that that rabbit had freaking _winked_ at him.

“Cassie? Please tell me you didn’t…?”

The syringe had been empty. The dose for Abaddon had been maybe a tenth of its contents and Cassie had gone and stuck himself with the whole damn lot. Well that was just peachy.

“Speak to me, Cassie. You feel okay? Drowsy? Sick? Nauseous? Oh fuck….”

The scent hit him like a freaking tsunami. Cas’s scent. Only not Cas’s scent, that damn scent the pillock had gone and overdosed himself with because he’d never listened when Balth had warned him not to use that rabbit. Despite himself, Balthazar had suddenly found the bottoms of his scrubs to be far too small.

“Okay, Cassie, we need to get you to the showers because if we don’t…”

_Because if a Beta like me wants to jump you right here and now, what do you think is going to happen when the Alphas next door get a sniff, hmm?_

When Cas finally opened his eyes, he’d taken one look at his suddenly paled skin and blown pupils and known they were seriously in the shit. Another scent wave washed over him as he desperately tried to think what procedures they had in place for accidents like these.

Carefully, he scooped Castiel up into his arms, wincing as the dampness from his slick worked its way through his thin scrubs and onto Balthazar’s skin. Not helping. Really not helping.

“Cassie. I’m going to put you in the obs room. We can lock the door, we can work something out from there, okay?”

The Omega’s eyelids fluttered shut again and he mumbled something in his doze. Balthazar froze. When the hell did the Cassie he knew even _learn_ words like that “ _What_ did you just say?”

Eyes blinked open and a look of dawning horror crossed his friend’s features. “I think I just invited you to knot me. With profanities” Cas buried his face in his hands so violently that his companion nearly dropped him.

It was quite possibly the only time in his life that Balthazar had been rendered speechless.

“Cassie. I’m locking you in. I’m going to get help, okay?” he kicked open the door of the obs room and staggered to the bed, laying the Omega down on it and backing away as quickly as he could.

“Get help?” Castiel’s eyebrows had knitted into a frown. “Why don’t we just stay here and we can make ourselves…” he shook his head violently, composing himself. “Oh fuck. Yes. Get help. Now.” Balthazar in that moment had honestly been about to ask exactly what help he was getting and why but then Cas had rolled over and unsteadily pushed his hips up so he could bloody well _present_ to him and he’d sensibly decided that fleeing was the more sensible option.

He’d locked the obs room on the way out and made sure to pocket the spare key too.

**_ Crowley _ **

“Boss _? Boss!”_

Crowley didn’t appreciate being disturbed from his crossword puzzles. Especially not when he was in the middle of working out an eleven letter word for ‘sex addict’ and couldn’t get his head around the cryptic. But Balthazar seemed to be panic stricken enough that he was willing to entertain the possibility of something relatively amusing happening in the vicinity. With a sigh, Crowley settled him paper down on his lap and raised a quizzical eyebrow at the blond lab assistant wringing his hands across the desk.

“What?”

Balthazar made a panicked sound that was somewhere between a squeak and a choke. Crowley gestured lazily with one hand for him to get on with it. He hated it when his work time got interrupted with the need to do actual work.

“It’s Castiel. Lab seven. He’s dosed himself by accident.”

He was about to ask why the hell he should care – what harm was an ovulation drug going to do to him? Then he remembered the change of project last week and his heart sank. Heat drugs were seriously, seriously bad news in the case of overdose. Shit.

“Where is he now?” his brain flicked urgently from one study to another, hoping to reassure himself that this stuff wasn’t at potent as he thought. Cas wasn’t going to be in any fit state to help himself if they didn’t act fast.

“In the lab.”

Crowley’s eyes widened.

“You left him in the lab? Godammit, Balthazar, everyone in the building is going to be able to smell him. What the hell were you thinking?”

When he didn’t respond, Crowley sighed and pulled a bottle from his desk, soaking his handkerchief with the contents. “This should neutralize the effects. Take a big sniff.”

Balthazar held the cloth to his face and complied, instantly recoiling from the smell.  “It’s a deterrent. Lab 4 are working on it. Good huh?” When Balthazar didn’t reply Crowley sighed and grabbed the hankie back in preparation for his own sniff. “Come on, you’d better show me where he is.”

It turned out that he could have found the way perfectly well on his own. Just follow the line of curious Alphas to Lab Seven. Despite himself, Crowley felt a flicker of worry for the Omega – getting him out of this place and down to the emergency room probably wasn’t going to be the best idea. Not unless he wanted to fight off half the workforce of the second floor, anyway.

By the time he and Balthazar reached the lab door it was already swinging limply from its hinges, no doubt bearing the marks of some or other colleague of theirs who hadn’t got a tight enough grip on their Alpha instincts that day. When Crowley found out who, they were getting the invoice for sure.

Sometimes, he really hated his job.

Sure, he liked other Alphas well enough at a safe distance. He could put up with Betas and well, the Omegas were never any trouble, it just wasn’t in their nature. He could probably have dealt just fine with a company full of all three if it were any sort of _normal_ company.

Crowley, much to his eternal dissatisfaction, did not work at a ‘normal’ company. No, Crowley worked in a lab that spent all of its time prying into the inner workings of heats and hormones, slick and ruts and all of those other things that could be counted upon to send any nearby wolves into a frenzy.

He should have followed in his father’s footsteps and become a bloody lawyer.

To Crowley’s surprise, the lab was not overrun with fiercely scenting Alphas. In fact, it couldn’t have been described as ‘overrun’ at all once he and Balthazar squeezed through the remains of the crowd.

The reason for that become horribly clear to Crowley about one fortieth of a second before the icy torrent of water caught him squarely on the chest.

“Holy fuck and unholy bollocks, Winchester, what on earth do you think you’re doing?” he heard Balthazar exclaim as he spluttered and choked on the remnants of the onslaught. Bloody hell, that was cold. Wiping the offending liquid from his brow he saw the towering figure of Sam Winchester, deputy head of Alpha sciences and _on toilet duty for a fucking week about this little episode_ staring down at him with an expression which could only be described as ‘sheepish’.

Well, at least someone had taken it upon themselves to be Cas’s knight in shining armour.

The deputy head of Alpha Sciences didn’t exactly look the part of heroic rescuer, which is what the part of Crowley’s brain that wasn’t busy coming up with new and ingenious ways to punish him was fairly certain he was trying to be. Heroic rescuers, in Crowley’s mind, didn’t wear their hair long and wear blue checks. Still, he imagined that Castiel was willing to take whatever hero he could get at that moment.

“Cold water, Balthazar.” He growled, pushing past the Beta to inspect the Obs room door. It seemed intact, which was something of a relief. “More effective at snapping a horny Alpha out of their rut than anything we’ve ever developed.”

In all honesty, he was impressed with the kid’s initiative.

He was still sending him his dry cleaning bill.

“Have you been standing guard, Winchester?” he asked. Sam shifted in embarrassment and nodded. “Good. You’ve saved us all that embarrassment at least.

More to the point, he’d probably saved one or more of the Alpha lab techs from getting spectacularly fired. Crowley didn’t care if the excuse was the strongest heat any of them had ever smelled, that didn’t give anyone the right to go around trying to rut their colleagues.

“Unlock the door, Winchester.”

He saw Sam hesitate. “Come on, Moose, let me look at him.” He proffered the hankie as some sort of token of his trustworthiness. “Won’t touch him. Promise.”

Sam bit his lip but nodded. “Okay. But I’m coming with you.”

**_ Cas _ **

_What you need_ Cas told himself firmly, as the next wave of his heat hit him with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer on a macaroon, _is an Alpha._

There wasn’t one around, so he grabbed hold of the headboard instead. Somewhere through the haze of _want_ and _knot me_ and _oh fuck, it’s really really hot in here_ he began to feel the faint tinge of panic.

It had been a big dose, he knew that at the time but somehow he’d hoped against hope that maybe it would work its way through his system quickly. At the very least he’d hoped that this was something he could get through on his own. He wasn’t some helpless little bitch, after all. No, Castiel understood his body, understood his heats and impulses and desires and… oh, fuck it, right then he understood one thing and one thing only and that was that he needed a knot more desperately than he’d ever needed anything.

Mewling softly at the shockwaves of pleasure that reverberated through his whole body, Cas slid a hand into the soaked pants of his lab scrubs and made a silent prayer to whoever was listening that this would do something, _anything_ to take the edge off.

He was expecting things to feel a little sensitive. He wasn’t expecting the shudder of electricity that ran through him the moment his fingers closed around himself. _Fuck_. He withdrew his hand hastily, his too-sensitive cock twitching as the rough material of his scrubs brushed against his skin. _Fuck fuck fuck._

He knew the worst that could happen when there was an uncontrollable heat involved. Hell, he’d worked in the emergency unit, seen what the backstreet stuff could do to people.

“Natural heats raise a body’s metabolism by 50%.” He muttered to him, trying to keep his focus away from the overwhelming scent of arousal that surrounded him. “In.. in cases of artificial stimulation, metabolism can rise as much as…” he cursed under his breath, unable to remember the rest of his own research paper. Was it 700%? 800%? It scarcely mattered. Anything over 100 could prove fatal if the Omega’s body couldn’t take it.

Cas was fit, he knew that. He ran nearly every day. But still, there was a limit to anyone’s heart when it came to that kind of endurance. Wincing, he attempted to push the pants of his scrubs down, determined to at least _try_ and help himself.

They’d never managed to find an effective antidote for the heat drugs. Only nature’s cure, as Crowley liked to call it. A good, hard knotting and an Alpha’s bite. Cursing himself, Cas wondered why on earth he hasn’t made a working antidote his research project for the term.

Stars flashed in front of his eyes as he wrapped his fingers back around his painful erection. One stroke and his whole vision was darkening, two and he nearly bit straight through his own lip in a bid to stay silent.

He didn’t know how many he managed in the end. Only that his whole body was shaking too much to continue before he’d reached any sort of release.

The click of the door lock sent him scrabbling for something to cover himself with. However much he was burning up, he wasn’t in the mood to give his colleagues a show. Especially not Balthazar, who was no doubt finding the whole thing extremely amusing.

Or perhaps not. To his surprise, the Balthazar who entered the room, flanked by Sam and Crowley, was ashen faced and wide eyed. The realisation that things were bad enough to have _Balthazar_ taking them seriously hit Cas like a ten ton weight to the chest. _Shit._

“Cas?” It was Sam who spoke first. Despite his predicament, he was glad to hear his voice. Not as glad he he’d been to hear his shout of “Back away from the fucking door, knothead!” a short while earlier or his assurance that he had dealt with the somewhat unpleasant issue of an entire band of Alphas trying to break into the Obs room to “knot the ripe bitch”, but glad nonetheless.

“Sam?” His voice was choked, raspy.

“Shit, Cas, you sound terrible. Look, we need to get you an Alpha.” He looked concerned, as if expecting a flat refusing and a fight on his hands. If he thought that Cas was in any fit state to give him a fight, he was sadly mistaken.

The Omega didn’t bother protesting. Hel, he knew by now that he was pretty short on options and death by heat induced fever wasn’t a very attractive one. Given his choices right then and there, he’d take the Alpha. He’d take the ugliest Alpha in the building if it would help one iota.

He heard the three of them taking amongst themselves, arguing in whispers he can’t quite catch. He caught the words ‘best’ and ‘trust’ and ‘he won’t like it’. Finally there seemed to be a consensus.

“Cas,” Sam’s voice was apprehensive.  “I’m going to call my brother.”

If Cas had thought his poor heart couldn’t kick him in the chest any harder right then, he’d have been sadly mistaken. Not Dean, please not Dean. He wanted to beg for someone, _anyone_ else. Anyone but the beautiful green-eyed Alpha he’d been lusting after ever since he joined to hospital four months ago. He’d been inching towards a coffee with the guy (or at least, addressing a sentence to him whilst in the staff coffee lounge), he’d been planning how to make a good impression. Okay, so he hadn’t got as far as making a move yet, or even saying “hello”, but…

…but it was better than _this_.

“No.” he managed to growl out, even as another wave of arousal hit him. He heard Sam sigh.

“He’s a trained Omega-facing paramedic. He’d experienced with heat ODs and he really likes you, Cas. Come on, you know he’s your best option.”

Cas managed a glare even through his glassy eyes. “Really? And what happens when it’s over? Thought about _that?_ If he… helps me out, then… then…”

 “Then you’ll have to avoid eye contact and scurry off like you’ve been scalded every time he comes near you forever.” Sam helpfully finished for him. “I understand that part. What I don’t understand is how that is in any way different from the current situation.”

When this was all over, Cas decided, Sam was going on his hit list right behind that sodding rabbit.

“Come on Cas. I know you can be a prude but choosing organ failure over my brother? I know he’s butt-ugly, but come on.”

He thinks Sam managed to duck his hastily thrown shoe. He also sort of hopes he didn’t. A few moments later the bed sags in the middle and his horribly heightened senses are awash with the scent of soap and clean hair and _Sam_. A warm hand clasps his shoulder and squeezes gently. “ _Cas.”_

Cas blames the hormones for how his eyes burn and prickle at that. He tries not to sound _too_ pathetic as he clasps at Sam’s wrist and mutters something about terminal embarrassment being a _far_ greater danger to his health right now than cirrhosis of the liver. Sam sighs and uses his free hand to brush Castiel’s hair back off his face.

“Cas. Dean’s a paramedic for a specialist Omega emergency room. Do you really think that _this_ is going to be out of the ordinary for him?”

Cas wriggled his fingers into Sam’s and squeezed tight as his friend added the words that made his cheeks burn painfully hot. “Besides, he likes you.”

If that was supposed to make him feel better, Cas decided, it was a complete and utter waste of Sam’s breath. Dean _liked_ him? How, _how_ was that supposed to make him feel any better? No, thank you Sam, but he’d rather think his chances were zero _before_ he screwed them up to some kind of obscene minus number. If he had a sniff of a chance with Dean and was on his way to blowing it spectacularly, well, that was just the poison cherry of top of the cow excrement cake that was his entire existence.

A small voice in the back of his head coolly informed him that he was being a bigger drama queen than Elizabeth Taylor on a bad day. He made the executive decision on behalf of the part of his mind that was busy having a meltdown and ignored it completely.

A curt English accent cut through his swathes of self pity and did a little dance of what remained of his dignity:

“Novak, you have five seconds to agree Winchester’s plan or I’m dragging you to ICU to start transfusions. Your choice.” Crowley tapped his watch and raised an eyebrow. Cas tried to summon up the energy to glare but only managed to turn his head a little way before the next wave of his heat swept over him, leaving him clutching Sam’s hand hard enough to bruise.

“Fuck it.” He managed to gasp out. “Call him, Sammy. Just call him.”

The last thing he remembered before blackness overtook him was the sight of Sam’s iPhone background. From the small but bright screen, a smiling Dean Winchester stood beside his brother and stared straight at him.

 

 


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sam tries to help, Dean takes a cold shower and no one gets any coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay - stupid exams were stupid. Back behind the keyboard and ready to write some por... story. I meant story. Enjoy!

**_ Sam _ **

He wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened but at some point between hanging up on his brother and legging it down to the shower block to make sure the water temperature was somewhere around ‘near-fatal frostbite’, Sam had found himself curled up around Castiel and successfully taking up what was definitely way more than half of the Obs Room’s very small bed.

Well, it wasn’t _quite_ true that he had no idea at all how he had wound his way into such a predicament. His treacherous brain seemed more than happy to offer up the details, quite unbidden.

In fact, his brain seemed to suggest that he’d bodily thrown the Beta lab assistant (Bally somebody?) from the room after he hadn’t been quick enough off the mark (in Sam’s eyes, anyway) in backing away from Castiel when he’d been told to. Crowley had followed of his own accord soon after, telling Sam that he could use whatever force he saw fit if any of their colleagues took a fancy to the stricken Omega again. His only concession was to make a point of specifying that he’d prefer no lasting damage – it was less paperwork. Then he was gone, leaving Sam alone to guard Cas until Dean arrived.

Unfortunately it hadn’t been many minutes, once all of the distractions were gone, before the angry resolve that had kept him focused on the immediate task at hand began to ebb away and Cas’s soft whimpers starting becoming impossible to blank out. Sam began to pace up and down, trying to supress the urge he felt to rush and comfort the Omega. To protect him.

_You_ are _protecting him_. He told himself, firmly. _You’re keeping him safe in this room. That’s the most important thing_.

He’d almost believed it for a moment. Then Cas had grabbed hold of his sleeve and started begging him to hold him, to just ‘make it stop’ and his resolve had crumbled.

It was Alpha contact Cas needed, he decided. If he was the only Alpha available then platonic Alpha contact would just have to do.

He’d climbed in beside the Omega, intending to press back-to back for the best skin coverage. Or maybe he’d just realised later what a good idea that would have been – he wasn’t sure. Either way, it didn’t quite work out as once Cas’s next wave of heat struck him he was burrowing into Sam’s arms and whimpering as if he was being scalded from within. Sam just held him tight, rubbing small circles on his back and praying that his brother would hurry.

“It’s okay, Cas. Dean’ll be here soon. It’s okay.”

Cas tensed up at the words and let out a groan that sounded suspiciously like “no”. Sam sighed, mentally preparing himself for another argument. “Cas, we agreed.”

A muffled groan came from somewhere against the fabric of his shirt. “I know.”

They both fell into silence after that. Cas’s vice grip on Sam’s shirt grew fractionally less desperate as the minutes ticked by _._ Despite himself, Sam felt his eyes beginning to flutter closed as his friend’s elevated scent wound its way through his senses. He smelled good. Hell, he smelled really, _really_ good.

He must have dosed off if only for a moment because the next thing he knew they weren’t alone any more. What was more - his brother’s fiercest stare of disapproval was staring straight down at him.

Oh shit.

**_ Cas _ **

The trouble with drifting in and out of consciousness, Cas would decide later, is that people catch you in some really compromising positions. Positions like, say, being spooned by the brother of the object of your affections whilst said object stares at you as if you’ve just announced a fondness for Spiceworld: The Movie.

Dean didn’t say anything when he first unlocked the door of the Obs Room and stepped inside. He didn’t need to. The raised eyebrow and the huff of disappointment said it all.

Oblivious, Sam’s warm weight shifted against his back, vibrating softly with what sounded like a purr. If he’d noticed Cas’s heartrate shoot through the roof, he didn’t give any sign of it.

“Well, I see you two have made yourselves comfortable.”

Sam’s arm shot back from its resting place around Castiel’s waist as if he’d been scalded. “Dean!”

Jolted into full wakefulness, Cas scrunched his eyes tightly shut and recommenced his attempts to actually pass out with humiliation. They could wake him up when it was all over, right? Or never? ‘Never’ worked too.

“You should be careful.” Dean’s tone was still light but somehow through his haze of panic Cas could still tell that he wasn’t smiling any more. This was serious, down-to-business Dean and he was clearly no longer amused.

Cas felt the bed shift as Sam sat up, heard the clicks as he stretched out his long limbs. “I was.”

“Sammy, you know what that scent can do to Alphas. Do you really want-“

“I wouldn’t!” Sam launched himself up off the bed, leaving Cas to curl up into a ball and attempt to concentrate on something, anything that wasn’t the brothers arguing over his head. Maybe the light in the ceiling – he could focus on it in a half hearted attempt to go blind.

“That stuff’s not made to be resistible, Sammy. It can hit you like _that_.” Dean snapped his fingers in front of his brother’s glare.

“I called _you_ , didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did.” Dean’s toned softened. “It was a good call, too. Hell, that stuff is _strong_.”

He was about to ask them both to stop discussing what his bodily fluids smelled like when he was _still in the damn_ room but then another wave hit him, sending blackness etched with red all over his vision. Somewhere under the roaring in his ears he heard Sam hurriedly tell Dean about what had happened, about how he’d sent Crowley and Balthazar out because the pheromones had started to affect them. He heard things he wished immediately that he hadn’t: words like “shutdown”, “Overdose” and “running out of time.”

“Cas? Hey! Can you hear me?”

It took him a moment to register that there were hands on his shoulder, another to realise that they belonged to Dean. His eyes snapped open in a panic. Where the hell was he? Oh.. Oh right… yes, Obs room. Sam. Dean. That was it.

“Cas?”

His lungs didn’t seem to be working. Not even when Dean shook him gently and rubbed his back for a response. “Cas?”

Cool fingers pressed themselves to his burning skin and he struggled weakly, trying to get away.

“Shit. Sammy. Grab that ice, would you?”

A moment later there was cold everywhere and the air rushed back into the room all at once. It was surprising how unwelcome a feeling that was.

“Cas?”

Strong fingers wound their way between his and squeezed tight. “Cas? Squeeze my hand.”

Somehow he managed to will his own fingers to co-operate. The room wasn’t spinning so fast any more. If only it would slow down just a little further so he could make out who was speaking to him. A second hand grabbed his shoulder and shook him, more firmly this time.

“Sammy, help me pick him up.”

Everything was too hot. He clutched at the cool fingers in his, trying to steal some sort of relief from the touch. He turned his head, burying his face in the warm cotton of Dean’s scrubs. There were hands on his back, steadying him – Sam’s, he guessed.

“Get down to the shower block – turn everything down as cold as you can get it and don’t let _anyone_ else in, got it?”

The roaring in his head drowned out what Sam said in response but he doubted it mattered very much. Nothing seemed to matter very much at all except the prospect of a good long sleep…

“Cas?”

This time, he couldn’t even manage a light squeeze of the Alpha’s hand. The blackness was too soothing, too comforting…

He didn’t remember any more after that.

**_ Dean _ **

Carrying an unconscious Omega down three corridors and four flights of stairs hadn’t been the easiest job in the world. By the time Dean had snarled, growled and threatened his way past anyone paying Castiel too much attention, he was already exhausted. Holding Cas under the rapidly cooling spray of the first shower he came to, he prayed to whoever was listening that this would work.

Amazingly, someone seemed to be listening.

Ten minutes into a shower colder than Dean could possibly bear, the Omega’s condition had improved so markedly that Dean was seriously considering requesting an ice bath or two for his unit. The trembling form that he’d held in his arms was gone and in its place an upright, if slightly unsteady Omega was leaning heaving against the shower room wall for stability. For a long while, neither of them spoke.

Cas broke the silence first – a low moan ripping through him as another wave of his heat took hold. Dean tried to keep his eyes on the Omega’s back, averted from the sight of the slick pooling at his feet. Fuck, there was a lot. That meant the dose was even higher than he’d thought.

He only noticed he’d started staring when Cas gave an embarrassed whimper and blushed an attractive shade of scarlet.

Dean bit his lip. He knew that calming Cas down was the best course of action. What he didn’t know was how on earth you went about convincing somebody trapped in the most embarrassing situation of their life that things are not as bad as they think.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed.” He ventured after a few moments.

“I _know_ I don’t have to be embarrassed.” Cas snapped. “It’s just… biology. Anyone would react the same way. Even if they didn’t have an alpha staring them down at the time.”

Dean wasn’t sure if the Omega was trying to convince him, or himself. On balance, there probably wasn’t a great deal of need to convince a paramedic who worked with Omegas day in and day out what the effect of a heat overdose was. Hell, Dean was fairly confident he was more of an expert on the subject than Castiel – sex scientist or not.

Cas hugged himself tight, tilting his face backward into the spray. The weight of expectation hung heavily in the air.

“Come on.” Dean rubbed what he hoped was a soothing hand across Cas’s shoulders. “It’s like you said, it’s just biology.” He paused, waiting for Cas to argue back. To his surprise the Omega remained silent, keeping his gaze fixed on the apparently fascinating spectacle of the showerhead dripping onto the tiles below. Despite himself, Dean chuckled and immediately felt heat rise beneath his palm.

“It’s _not_ funny.” Cas’s voice was indignant.

Another treacherous giggle escaped him. “It kind of is. You’re a sex scientist who gets embarrassed about sex.”

“I am _not_ embarrassed by sex. Just because I’m not… I don’t know… turning myself around and _presenting_ for some Alpha I barely know because a synthetic hormone told me to… I’m _not_ embarrassed by sex!”

Dean began to rub his fingers in small circles against the nape of Cas’s neck, marvelling at the way the tension melted out of the muscles there as he did.

“No? So you’re saying it’s not you, it’s me? You’re just not in the mood enough to get the job done?” he kept his tone light even as he watched for any kind of reaction from the Omega. Loathed as he would be to admit it, a tiny part of him suddenly feared it might be true.

Cas let out a sigh, his whole body seeming to shrink with it as he half-leant, half-cowered against the wall.

“It’s you.” He said at last, so quiet that Dean nearly missed the fact he had spoken at all. “But not in the way you think.”

Dean dropped his hand away.  He was beginning to wish he had never started this conversation, especially when it seemed that all he had done was make things more awkward than they needed to be. Considering the starting point of ‘awkward’ was two people who had never spoken more than three complete sentences in a row to each other having full-on passionate sex in a semi-public shower block for medical necessity, ‘more awkward’ was a pretty damn good effort on his part. Somehow, he doubted anyone would be giving him a medal for it. He sighed and reached up to rub a hand through his own hair.

“Cas, look, I know I’m not your first choice, but this isn’t exactly…”

“You are.”

He blinked sharply. Cas was turning to face him, his eyes downcast, his teeth worrying at his bottom lip. “That’s just it. You _are_ my first choice, Dean. That’s… that’s… damn it, this is so…”

He looked up at long last and his gaze sent shockwaves through Dean’s thoughts. For the first time in a long time, Dean had no words. He wanted to say many things – that he was glad, that he was flattered, that Cas didn’t need to be embarrassed because Dean was so damn pleased to hear those words he couldn’t give one single, solitary fuck about impropriety. He wanted to say them all at once.

He didn’t manage to say any of those things. He did, however, manage to close his mouth which had fallen open in shock at some point and was probably not winning him any prizes in the ‘attractive Alpha male’ stakes. He counted that as a good thing.

“So...er…” Cas shuffled from one foot to the other. “I understand if you… I mean… the cold water’s doing great, maybe I don’t need…” he bit harder at his lip, drawing blood.

All of Dean’s senses were screaming at him to _move_. To sweep the Omega up in his arms, to press him hard up against the wall and show him how damn mutual the feeling really was. Instead, he managed an “Um.”

Cas stopped his pacing, glancing up at him questioningly. “Um?”

_Say something!_ Dean’s brain screamed at him. _For fuck’s sake, say anything._

“Um… I….”

_Anything_ other _than ‘um’, you idiot._

But his thoughts were already beginning to drift - Cas had been out from under to spray for too long and the scent of him was getting stronger on every inhale.

“What is it, Dean?”

_Anything, you moron. Just. Make. Words._

“Coffee.” He managed at last. “I… um… coffee.”

“What?”

Dean bit his own lip, fisting his hand in his hair in a gesture of uncertainty. The Omega’s gaze softened in the face of his obvious distress. Slowly, carefully, Castiel reached up and guided his hand back to his side. “Hey…”

“We should have coffee.” Dean spluttered out. “After this. As if this…”

“Never happened!” The smile on Castiel’s face was one of pure relief. “Yes. Yes, I’d love to have coffee with you. We can… we can get to know each other, maybe. Talking about _anything_ other than this.”

Heat rose in Dean’s face and for a moment he wanted nothing more than to dive straight under the freezing shower spray with Castiel and kiss him until neither of them cared how strange the day had been or what had, by necessity, to come next. After all of those months of trying to work up the nerve to ask him if he wanted a coffee; well he hadn’t planned it exactly like this but in the circumstances it would have to do.

“Dean? Oh fuck… _Dean_ ”

He snapped out of his reverie when he caught sight of the other man. Cas had paled alarmingly, his pupils blown. A few seconds later Dean was thanking his instincts for having a much better grip on reality than the rest of his brain and managing to catch the stumbling Omega tightly in his arms before he could hit the floor.

“Shit. _Shit_. Stay with me Cas. You hear me? Stay with me.”

Hands clasped weakly at the back of his neck, trying to tug him closer. Cas was shaking but his eyes were clear as he raised his lips to Dean’s ear and murmured.

“Enough talking. I need you. Now.”


	4. Chapter 3 - Health, Safety and other word that don't apply to shower sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I finally managed to write "teh sex". Now, on with the plot!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I finally got through my absolutely awful porny writer's block to give you...er...this.
> 
> The good news is, the next chapter is nearly done and on its way, Hurrah!

_Dean_

As a trained paramedic who specialised in Omega medicine, Dean Winchester liked to think he had a fair old amount of willpower. Enough to forgo a second slice of cake in the canteen at the end of a busy shift, for instance – hell, enough to withstand the lure of freshly baked pie on a Tuesday afternoon if he really put his mind to it. But there was cake and there was pie and _then_ there was six feet of warm, purring Omega pressed against him with one thing in mind. At some point in the whole catastrophe, Dean Winchester’s will power had clearly packed its case and taken a spur of the moment vacation with his professional judgement and sense of shame.

He’d remember later, of course, probably when writing up his case notes with a _very_ selective memory, that kissing a patient was strictly prohibited. Every paramedic in his unit knew that and any idiot in the entire hospital could have guessed it wasn’t the best of ideas. Still, ‘any idiot’ wasn’t quite in the same predicament he found himself right then so perhaps he should be excused just this once.

His train of thought was spectacularly derailed as Castiel bit down gently on his bottom lip and Dean made the eminently sensible and pragmatic decision to leave the matter of gross misconduct to the morning. Besides, he was fairly certain that grinding against a colleague and seducing them in the shower block wasn’t in Cas’s job description either. Not unless it was right between ‘look fuckable in a lab coat’ and ‘smell delicious at all times’, anyway.

“You’re thinking,” a silky voice purred against his lips. “You are thinking far too much.”

Hands stroked their way to his hips, pulling his body flush to the Omega’s. “ _Please_ Dean.” With that final plea, his resolve shattered and he leaned in to press a gentle kiss to Castiel’s lips.

The next thing he knew he was stumbling backwards and there were strong fingers fisting in his hair and no air in his lungs. He found he didn’t miss it. Not when Cas was trying his level  best to stop him thinking of anything else but _him._ The Omega felt so good in his arms it was all Dean could do not to pin him to the shower wall and have him there and then. He wondered how Castiel felt about such things – whether he enjoyed being overpowered by an Alpha or would rather take charge himself. Dean had a feeling he was an Omega used to getting his own way in the end.

He was quickly discovering that Cas was a lot stronger than he looked, quick and lithe and with his heat spurring him on he took control of the kiss, pulling back to nibble gently on the other man’s lip as Dean’s moan tore through the silence of the room. A delicious scent flooded his senses and moments later when he felt his own wolf took over, Cas’s back hit the shower wall with a jolt, effectively trapping him between the cool tiles and his Alpha. Something inside Dean growled in approval. _This_ was how an Omega got fucked, he told himself, _this_ was how a heat was quelled. His hands found the Omega’s wrists and he pinned him to the wall, growling a low warning in his throat to warn off any thought of rebellion.

The Omega let out a desperate mewl and wriggled his way around in Dean’s firm hold until he was pressed face first against cool porcelain, pushing back into his Alpha’s body with a long groan. _Dean. Alpha. Please._ His head fell back, exposing the long line of his throat to the other man’s touch as he whimpered. _Dean. I need you._

The sight of Cas’s gesture of submission sent shockwaves of need through Dean. His teeth clenched involuntarily, longing to bite down on the tanned skin of the Omega’s neck. His jaw ached with the effort of holding himself back. Shakily, he ran the fingertips of his free hand lower down Cas’s back, teasing between his legs for a brief moment before finding his goal.

He was burning up. The thought jolted Dean from his lust filled haze and back to the task at hand like a wave of cold water. The task of _saving Castiel_ he reminded himself fiercely. The rim of the Omega’s entrance was already hot and swollen under the strain of his heat, leaking slick between his thighs at a rate he knew must be more than the Omega’s body could handle.

The Omega jerked against the touch and Dean moved his free hand to rub his back in soothing circles. He wasn’t surprised at the over-sensitivity. If Cas had been hit with as much of that heat-enhancer stuff as they thought, his whole body was going to be on fire by now, _begging_ for a knot. He inwardly winced in sympathy.  “It’s okay, Cas, try and relax”.

Slowly, carefully, Dean pressed the tip of his finger inside him, ready to stop if the Omega gave _any_ sign that it was too much after all. Though he didn’t honestly have any idea of what he would do if this failed. There were other measures, ice baths and stuff, but nothing could stop a heat like this once it really got its claws in to its victim. Silently Dean prayed that his colleague could handle it better than some of the others.

Cas’s whole body jerked violently at the intrusion and he stifled a long whimper, a plea for a cock – for a _knot_ before he went mad with desire.

 “Dean. _Dean.”_

“I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

Cas wanted to argue. Wanted to scream out that it wasn’t okay, that it wouldn’t be close to okay until Dean was buried inside him but he just couldn’t choke those words, or _any_ words, out whilst the Alpha was touching him like that.

“Cas? You ready?”

He felt the solid weight of Dean’s erection press against him and purred out loud.

“Yes. Oh God yes.”

 

**_Cas_ **

It took every ounce of self control that Cas had left to relax back into Dean’s arms and not wrench away. Every touch felt like electricity running though his skin; a short, painful shock that left him wanting to cry out and beg for more all at the same time. _It’s okay._ He tried to convince himself. _Dean won’t hurt me._

When Dean pressed his lips against Castiel’s neck and gave the gentlest of nips, the Omega felt the tight coils of tension in his chest unwind a little for the first time since he’d jabbed himself with that bastard needle. His intense heat still burned its way through him as horribly as ever, sending a steady stream of slick down his thighs and his insides still ached from the lack of a knot but somehow, _somehow_ his body seemed to know that his Alpha was close at last and ready to take care of him.

Through his fogged senses, Cas felt a strong arm circle his waist and spoon him back against a warm, firm body. His wolf mewled for more, spurring Castiel on to _beg_ the Alpha. Beg him to take him and mate him. He closed his eyes, braced both forearms against the cold tiles and tried desperately to repress his instincts from embarrassing him.

“Cas? You okay?”

The arm tightened around him, offering comfort. Cas nodded fervently. “I’m fine. I need you.” He turned his head to plead and was rewarded with a soft kiss from his Alpha that sent his Omega howling. _He should have claimed you by now_ his thoughts hissed, _what kind of Alpha kisses like that?_

He felt the pressure against his rim build and then fade, felt Dean rubbing his shoulders in a comforting motion. “Are you sure? You don’t feel okay.”

This time Castiel couldn’t stop the frustrated whine that escaped him. Biting his lip and flushing in humiliation, he averted his eyes and divulged his secrets to the newly laid grouting. It was a lot easier to look at tiles. Tiles didn’t look back at you as if you’d just kicked them in the stomach.

“The…the drug… it’s um…”

Dean’s lips nuzzled his ear in encouragement.

“It’s… ah! It’s not exactly after _soft and gentle_.” He hissed, marvelling that he could get any words out at all when Dean was doing such heavenly things to him. He was fairly certain that sweet kisses and soft words were not part of any treatment plan in existence and somehow the fact that they were _just for him_ made it all a hundred times worse. Not having Dean was one thing. Having Dean and then going back to _not_ having Dean? It didn’t bear thinking about. Only it was all he _could_ think about because he was a hundred per cent damn sure that once Dean got to know him properly his chances of another night like this were going to be approximately zero.

He felt Dean’s frown against his skin.

“Cas…”

“I know.” He whispered, feeling his cheeks burn as his own words sank in. “I… It’s what I need.”

 Dean’s arm tightened protectively around him and Cas quickly looked away in as much shame as he could muster, given the circumstances.

“I… I _won’t_ hurt you. I know how... I mean… I understand what you’re feeling right now but…” Dean sighed and pressed a kiss to the Omega’s shoulder. “Do you still want me to do this?”

Cas nodded desperately. “Now, Dean. Please… just… do it now.”

Dean hesitated but still let Cas take his hands and gently guide them down to rest on the Omega’s hips. “ _Please_ ”

He felt it then – the first push, the sear of heat and stretch as Dean finally pushed inside him. He heard the Alpha stifle a string of curses as he felt the Omega’s body submit to him – drawing him in hungrily after hours of withdrawal. His own fingers clawed against the wall, failing to find purchase until Dean clasped his hands in his own; entwining their fingers and bringing them to rest on Cas’s aching abdomen.

“Please Dean, _Please_.”

If the Alpha heard his plea he didn’t heed it. Instead he stilled, buried inside him and waited for his body to relax back into his arms. It was sensible, he told himself, after all of the overstimulation and overslicking there was no telling how sensitive and sore he would be. The thought didn’t salve his frustration over the fact that it didn’t feel sore at all – it felt _perfect_.

Cas pushed his instincts down firmly, determined not to spook Dean any further. One gasp of pain, one groan too loud and he knew it would all be over. Dean wouldn’t risk injuring him. Part of him was grateful but another, louder part wanted to scream at him to just get out with it. Under his skin his heat burned on, making him sweat.

Then, finally Dean began to move and it was as if his fever had broken at last. The shower block faded out around him as stars filled his vision. His legs felt as though they would never stop shaking but Dean held him tight, supporting him closely as they moved together, each clinging to the remnants of self control with everything they had left.

Then Dean hit something that made the Omega jolt back in his arms and whimper for more and his resolve finally snapped.

“Fuck! Dean…”

He didn’t have to beg this time. His Alpha’s only concession to gentleness this time was to press him carefully up against the cool tiled wall before another fierce thrust sent him mewling into a delirious haze of lust and pleasure and _rightness._

He didn’t hold back his cries this time. He knew his Alpha could hear them for what they were. One groan after another fell from his lips as Dean gave him what he needed at last.

Strong hands held his hips tightly, fingers pressing hard enough to leave marks but he didn’t care. He wanted, no – he _needed_ his Alpha to mark him up, to stake his claim and show the whole world who Castiel really belonged to.

“M’yours” he whimpered, laying his head back against Dean’s strong shoulder. “Show me.”

Dean thrust into him roughly and he gasped, letting his senses ride the edges of his orgasm. Dean’s knot was starting to catch – he could feel him, needed him, wanted him right then and there but try as he might he couldn’t even wriggle enough in his Alpha’a tight grip to push back against the warm body that enveloped him.

“You’re mine” Dean hissed back, rocking his hips slowly against the Omega, teasing him closer. “ _Mine_ ”

Then Cas felt the sting of teeth and the warmth of his lover’s lips and he was falling, falling into Dean and the Alpha thrust back into him again and again until his orgasm overtook him.

 

**_Crowley_ **

Health and Safety were, quite ironically, the three words which were more likely to give Crowley a coronary than any other.

Apparently it wasn’t good enough for the bosses at the Omega institute that Castiel was _fine_ and enjoying a few days of rest before coming back to work. Nope, there had to be a report and an inspection and a bloody _hearing._

It wasn’t as if he’d chucked the poor guy at the nearest Alpha and let nature take its course. Dean was a specialist, a professional.

True, he was probably _professionally_ bending Castiel’s legs behind his head at that precise moment but that was beside the point. It had been necessary. Ish. A bit.

It didn’t deserve a full bloody thematic review, anyway.

Especially not one from Alistair of all people. Crowley had no doubts that he took better care of his Omega employees’ welfare than that clown ever could. The dirty old sod was probably just smarting that he hadn’t been first on the scene when Cas had had his little… incident. Crowley’s hackles rose at the thought. He’d have begged Sam to do it, hell, he’d have taken care of things himself before he let someone like that touch an Omega under his care. There was zero tolerance to any kind of anti-social or unwanted sexual behaviour toward Omegas in their hospital and Crowley was damn proud to enforce that culture whenever necessary.

Bitterly, he went back to preparing the case file. Dean and Cas’s statements weren’t in yet but everything else looked conclusive enough.

Preparing himself for a long night with Microsoft Word, Crowley unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk and retrieved the red wine bottle tucked inside.

It was going to be a long night.

****

**_Cas_ **

From the moment Dean had agreed to Cas’s request to ‘give him some space’, he’d regretted asking. Well, actually, not from that precise moment. From the one after it. The one where he’d realised that he was too embarrassed to ever, _ever_ come out of the shower and look at Dean in the cold light of day and that death by freezing was his only plausible option.

It came to something when even an attempt to contract hypothermia was thwarted by the persistence of Dean Winchester. The shower, unused to being run for hours at a time, had somehow finally run out of Arctic ex-glacier and was now drizzling what would only be described as a half-arsed attempt at lukewarm. Worse, he was warming up in himself. There was something strangely comforting about being so cold that the numbness was almost painful – there was precisely nothing comforting about being horribly wet and cold and stuck in a dingy shower block. Thirty five minutes and what felt like an ice age into his stand of resistance, Castiel finally gave into the inevitable.

“Dean? Dean can I have a towel?”

For a moment there was silence. Not a long silence, but just long enough for the butterflies in his stomach to beat themselves into a frenzy at the idea that Dean might not reply.  That Dean might have found something better and more entertaining to do with his time than wait for a petulant Omega to finally get over himself and leave the shower block so they could both go home. Most things were probably more entertaining than that, come to think of it, even the health and safety paperwork that probably awaited when this was all over.

Shit. If Dean had chosen admin over him, he was definitely going to give that drowning plan another shot.

“Hey.”

If there had been a more welcome sight than Dean Winchester holding out a towel, anywhere in history, Cas couldn’t think about it right then. The Alpha had dried off and dressed himself in the casual clothes he must have retrieved from his locker whilst he waited and even as Castiel’s Omega protested over the layer upon layer hiding the Alpha’s skin from his view he found himself scrambling to his feet and stumbling forward to greet him.

He heard Dean swear under his breath as the Alpha wrapped the towel around him and tugged him close. “Damn it, Cas, you’re freezing.”

Cas couldn’t have given even the measliest of flying fucks about being cold right then; the moment he was in Dean’s arms he was warming from the inside out, his Omega purring so fiercely he was sure he’d let the sound slip out of his own mouth. Tentatively, he nuzzled Dean’s neck, breathing in his comforting scent. In the back of his mind he vaguely recalled some reason that he had to stay in the shower block and never come out but any feelings of mortification had gently melted away in favour of a steady stream of _Alpha_ and _Hold me_ and _bite me._

“We need to get you dressed.”

Cas huffed in disapproval. Of course he didn’t need to get dressed, how would he be able to touch Dean properly with all his clothes on? He resolutely ignored the last remaining sensible voice in his brain and concentrated instead on working his fingers into the waistband of his Alpha’s jeans. Dean yelped in surprise at the cold touch and Cas grinned, splaying his fingers out for greater effect.

“You shouldn’t overheat now – you’ve cooled right dow- _ah!_ ” he shot an accusing look at the Omega who smiled innocently back at him. “Cas. You should know that we’re never going to get out of this shower block if you keep doing that.”

Reticently, Cas freed both of his hands and concentrated instead on keeping quiet whilst Dean gently towelled him off.

“I was thinking though, you should come home with me tonight.” He faltered in the face of Cas’s stunned expression and hurriedly continued, “These induced heats, they can have aftershocks so it’s best that I’m around.”

The half of Castiel which wasn’t doing a quick dance of joy did its best to hide the panic that was sweeping over him at those words.

Dean wanted him to stay until his heat was over.

Dean wanted to be around him in his normal state.

His normal, crippled-by-shyness, can’t-look-at-him-without-blushing state.

Cas dreaded to think what it would be like, being close to Dean without his instincts to guide him. What if it was awkward? What if it was _so_ awkward that Dean didn’t want to take him for coffee anymore? What if they accidentally had sex again?

At the thought of sex, his Omega perked up. Instinctively, he suddenly knew that going home with Dean was a truly fantastic idea. He tried to think about things rationally for a moment. _No_ his Omega hissed. _Alpha. Bed. Safe._

With a sigh Cas reached out for his Alpha and nodded his head.

“Sure thing Dean. Sounds great.”

 

**_ Balthazar _ **

“I know what you’re thinking.” Balthazar cooed as he finished brushing out Abaddon’s newly gleaming coat. “What is that very attractive and rather debonair blond man so happy about?”

He paused for a moment to fully bask in the smug glory of his own rightness. Abaddon twitched her nose encouragingly.

“Well, I shall tell you, my little snuggle bunny. I shall tell you all about how clever Balthy won twenty dollars _and_ secured himself a new office.”

He liked to think that Abaddon looked suitably impressed. For a rabbit. Balthazar basked in the appreciation for a moment or two before producing another carrot, clearing his throat and continuing his tale.

“You see, once upon a time, Balthy had a colleague called Castiel. And he was very grumpy sometimes, especially on Monday mornings and always refused to come out for drinks after work.”

Well, he conceded to himself, not _always_. Just lately he’d taken to tagging along and then sitting in a corner refusing to interact with anyone. It was an improvement of sorts. Still, Abaddon didn’t need to hear all about Cassie’s social issues, he suspected she was more of a “juicy details” kind of girl.

“Of course, all of the other, not-so-attractive lab technicians wanted Cassie to cheer up. In fact, Dr Uriel wanted to put a stop to Cassie’s mopey Monday emails so much that he offered a cash reward to anyone who could put a smile on his face.”

Abaddon cocked her head to one side and gave the carrot a surreptitious nibble.

“Fortunately for Cassie, his very clever lab partner hit the jackpot on the latest batch of drugs they were working on. They didn’t just work, they worked so bloody brilliantly that the entire Nobel Prize committee flocked down to the hospital and…” he tailed off in the face of what he could have sworn was a sceptical look. “…well anyway, it worked. And with your help, my fluffy little pal, Cassie reaped all of the benefits.”

He’d felt terrible about the accident until the moment he’d seen Cassie strolling out of the hospital, arm in arm with the extremely attractive Alpha paramedic he’d been mooning after for an age. By the time he’d watched, gawping from his lab window, as the shy Omega he’d worked with for years draped himself over the bonnet of a very shiny classic car and proceeded to pull said extremely-attractive-Alpha-Paramedic on top of him, he was starting to suspect Castiel owed him a beer, a raise and a month’s worth of exclusion from cleaning duty. He’d settle for just the beer, but it would be nice to get _some_ appreciation.

“You see, Abby-baby, I am _such_ a great guy.”

“Sounds like it.”

Balthazar jumped so badly he dropped the much-anticipated carrot onto the lab floor. The voice had been distinctly masculine and, from its tone, highly amused but he was certain there was no one else in the lab. He’d locked the door himself, for crying out loud. The only other key holder was Crowley, which left…

Cautiously, Balthazar leaned in to the fluffy little face of him companion and narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

“Um… Abaddon?”

“Yes, Balthy-kins?”

For approximately four and a half seconds, Balthazar thought he had finally gone mad. Crackpot. Bonkers. He was going to be taken away by the men in white coats and locked up in a small padded room whilst people stared at him through a tiny window. On the fifth second, he heard the giggling from behind him.

“Gabriel!”

It was testament to how panicked he’d been seconds earlier that he was actually pleased when the familiar blond head emerged from its hiding place behind Cas’s desk. Fortunately, the rest of Gabriel came with it, smirking at its own cleverness.

“Hey Balthy-poo.”

Balthazar shot his unwelcome visitor the best glare he could muster. “Hey, don’t be like that. Not when we should be celebrating finally getting my brother laid.” He produced two bottle of Heineken from behind his back and grinned. “Crowley lent me his keys, said it was a long story and I should make myself comfortable.” He perched on the desk and expertly flipped the cap off his bottle.

“What is there to tell?” Balthazar settled a miffed Abaddon back into her cage and stroked her nose.

“Everything.”

 


	5. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay on this one! One dead laptop made for no writing and no beta-reader, so I apologise again for again mistakes. Aside from those two warnings, I hope you enjoy Chapter 4 and if you do, please let me know - it'll cheer me right up after the laptop woe.

** Balthazar **

It was at some point between abandoning his work to drink beer with his old school friend, kidnapping a rabbit and signing up for a potentially criminal activity that it occurred to Balthazar that Gabriel Novak was a bit of a bad influence on him. Not that he couldn’t be persuaded to slack off at the drop of a hat usually. Heck, the number of previous times he’d found himself crashed out in his living room with Gabe and a mountain of pizza boxes didn’t bear thinking about. This was standard for them although the law breaking, however mild, was new. If crashing a book signing could even count as a dastardly criminal act.

“So…this event thingy.” Balthazar tipped the recently rehomed Abaddon off his lap and onto the sofa cushions so he could stand up and stretch. “It’s a book tour, you say?”

Beside him, Gabriel stretched straight out into the space he’d vacated and purred like a cat who’d just exchanged contracts on his own dairy farm. “The book tour of the year, so I’ve heard.”

“Your brother’s book tour?”

Gabriel nodded sagely.

“And you want to sabotage it…why?”

His friend grinned and simply gestured to his rucksack which lay somewhere in the vicinity of the doorway to Balthazar’s bedroom. “Why don’t you read the copy I bought you as an oh-so-thoughtful gift and see for yourself?”

Well, Balthazar couldn’t deny that he was at least a little intrigued by that statement. Intrigued enough to brave a rummage through Gabriel’s things (a notoriously risky pastime) at least. It wasn’t many moments before his fingers worked their way through the layers of various items of clothing, bottles of indeterminate origin and what looked like a pair of fluffy handcuffs (always safest not to ask with Gabe) to close upon an ornately bound copy of what proclaimed itself to be;

“The _Docile Omega?”_ Balthazar spat. “What the bloody hell?”

Gabriel sat up and shot his companion a long suffering long which would have melted the hearts of teenage girls the world over. “This, Balthy, is why I need your help.”

Wrinkling his nose in disgust, Balthazar flipped the book over and read the reviews aloud:

“I was once what they call a ‘modern omega’. I had a high flying job, an apartment and an Alpha husband with whom I split the household chores and bills equally. Misguided, I believed this was how my life should be. Since I discovered Doctor Michael’s teachings I have had my eyes opened to the miracle of my true Omega nature. I live to serve my Alpha in the home and the only wage I need is to know I’ve pleased him. I have never been happier – read the _Docile Omega_ today and discover your true path to happiness.”

Balthazar paused a moment to congratulate himself on not throwing up. “And this guy is your _brother?_ ”

Gabriel rolled his eyes and nodded. “Read the sex chapter. Chapter 11.”

Wrinkling his nose in disgust, Balthazar pressed on. “Unlike their Alpha and Beta superiors, Omegas do not require physical pleasure in order to fulfil their function in sexual intercourse. In fact, many studies have shown that Omegas who concentrate more closely on the needs of their Alphas during coitus will prove more fertile and…. Oh my giddy aunt, what is _wrong_ with this guy?”

“Keep going! You’re nearly at the best bit.”

“A Docile Omega will accept penetration from their Alpha in a face down position and must remain silent throughout the act. The fulfilment of an Omega’s intended role is a solemn and sacrificial event which should not be diluted or…what the hell? Not be diluted or in any way _violated_ by the pursuit of coital pleasure from the Docile Omega.”

Gabriel’s laugh was softer this time, as if he had been distracted from the dreaded book for the time being. “You know, B….”

“Mmm?”

“Talking about all this makes me really horny.”

Balthazar snorted. “That isn’t a very Docile attitude, Gabe.”

The Omega groaned and shifted in place as he tried to position himself in a way that wouldn’t leave a wet patch on the cushions in the event he got _really_ carried away.

“Neither was fucking my Beta roommate whenever I could convince him to switch places throughout college, what’s your point?”

Now it was Balthazar’s turn to blush. “Well Gabe, according to this, that glorious cock of yours should remained untouched to avoid detracting from your partner’s pleasure. I don’t seem to recall much of that going on. Not unless things have changed a lot since our college days.”

“We really need to take Michael down a peg or two, don’t we?”

“Or three or four or five.”

Gabriel sighed and reached out a hand for the offending object. “I just hope he doesn’t decide to make Cassie’s life miserable whilst he’s down here. He arrives in two days and if he finds out about the little _incident_ he’ll be all over it.”

Balthazar mused this over for a few moments. “We could just leave him to Dean.”

“Tempting….” Gabriel chewed his lip in thought. “ _Very_ tempting.”

****

****

** Castiel **

When Cas finally opened his eyes he found he was too blissed out to care that he’d apparently been run over several times by a bus the night before. Everything hurt. Between yesterday morning and the current moment, something between a bad bout of flu and the bubonic plague had ravaged through him until he was utterly exhausted and aching all over to boot. On the plus side, he appeared to be cocooned in crisp, fresh white sheets and could smell bacon. He was fairly certain that counted as a plus side even if his legs wouldn’t quite co-operate enough to let him investigate where the bacon smell was actually coming from.

A sudden weight on the edge of the bed should have made him jump but instead he shuffled towards the new presence, moving on instinct. He was in his Alpha’s bed – there was nothing dangerous here.

“Well, look who’s awake. I made breakfast, but there’s painkillers here if you need them first, okay?”

Gentle fingers brushed through his hair, eliciting a soft purr he didn’t realise he knew how to make.

He opened his mouth to protest but the overwhelming scent of _Alpha_ and _Dean_ sent any hope of verbalising his feelings running, screaming in the direction of “not flipping likely” and straight past “hell no” without a glance back. Dammit, he smelled good. All clean skin and whiskey and something faintly like those ‘cotton fresh’ dryer sheets that Cas was sure he’d seen on a two for one deal in the supermarket earlier that week. Come to think of it, he should probably pick up another box or two of those before the deal ended because his stuff just lost its freshness after a few days in his closet and it would be nice to not have to steam iron his work shirts every other-

 _Cas._ His brain hissed _This is your sanity speaking. Stop thinking about the damn laundry and answer the question._

Wait, question? There was a question?

It occurred to Castiel a good deal later that a normal human would, at this point, have simply asked Dean to repeat himself. Such a course of action was sensible, logical and far less likely to result in embarrassing misunderstandings than Cas’s bright idea which was simply to take a stab in the dark, mentally flip a coin and blurt out “yes”.

Dean’s smile faded almost immediately. “Really?”

Cas mentally kicked himself and then, not feeling that his brain had in any way suffered enough for its latest bright idea, mentally punched himself in the face a few times for good measure.

“Um.. really?” he replied, wondering all too late if he should just own up to the fact he hadn’t really been listening. Sure, it was a little embarrassing to tell someone you were sat in an otherwise silent room with that you hadn’t been paying attention to their voice because you really wanted to know what dryer sheets they used, but it had its advantages. Not digging yourself the mother of all holes by faking it, for instance.

Dean’s frown deepened. “Let me see.”

Cas felt his cheeks burn. “Let you…let you see what?” He had a horrible feeling he already knew but that didn’t stop him from sending a quick prayer to whomever might be listening that Dean had meant something else. Show him his DVD collection, for instance? Show him how he got the creases in his lab coat so straight? Show him how to make blueberry pancakes so they could sit out on the balcony and eat them together?

He looked back at Dean and his fleeting hope vanished. With an embarrassed sigh he stirred his aching limbs into action and wriggled his way onto his stomach, trying to hide a wince as the sore places inside him woke up all over again.

“Are you okay with this?”

Cas sighed and finally decided that the sensible option was probably best. “Okay with what, Dean?”

Warm fingers ran over his hip, making him shudder in anticipation.

“I’ll need to touch you to see where its hurting.”

Cas edged his legs further apart in a silent assent. “It’s fine, really.”

He tried not to flinch as the movement jarred him, making his hole burn all over again. He didn’t need Dean’s assessment to know he looked a complete and utter spent mess. At some point in the night he’d started leaking slick again and every time he moved he felt a fresh wetness between his thighs. Everywhere inside him ached with an unfamiliar intensity as if he’d been fucked by twenty Alphas in a row. Hell, the state he’d been in last night he probably wouldn’t have protested if he had been. A touch startled him from his reverie and he felt his face burn in embarrassment as Dean’s cool fingers gently gripped his legs, easing them apart for a better view.

“This looks a lot sorer than it should.”

Cas tried not to flinch as Dean’s fingers inspected his tender rim and quickly stifled a shameful whine in his pillow as he felt a new flow of slick greet the Alpha’s touch.

“How are you feeling now?”

Cas shrugged the best he could. “Better than yesterday. Still not quite…” he bit his lip, trying to find the words. “It still feels like heat. Just not as badly as before.”

Dean’s fingers probed a little deeper, forcing him to bite back a moan. “Fuck, Dean!” The touch vanished and his Omega whimpered at the loss. “I didn’t mean you to stop. Don’t stop.”

He felt the Alpha’s hand come to rest in the curve of his back, soothing him. But the other touch didn’t return – not the one he _needed_. Whimpering softly, Castiel pushed his hips back toward his Alpha, silently begging for what he needed. All that met his efforts was a gentle touch and a soft kiss at the back of his neck.

“Easy there, Cas.”

This time the pillow couldn’t quite muffle his groan of frustration.

“I mean it, we can’t do anything until I’ve checked you over.”

He wanted to scream at his Alpha then. Scream at his stupid, reticent, _careful_ Alpha until he did what Alphas were supposed to do and knotted him into the mattress until he screamed for real. What kind of mate left their Omega to beg them whilst they took _precautions_?

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the part of Cas that wasn’t currently being ruled by his Omega instincts attempted feebly to point out that Dean was looking after him and that such an act of kindness deserved better than a petulant outburst. Unfortunately, the front of his mind didn’t quite agree.

“Stop messing around and fuck me fucking properly.”

To his surprise, all that met his display of disobedience was a soft laugh and trio of quick kisses to his shoulder.

“Well, you’re burning up _and_ you’re getting aggressive, Cas. I’d say that’s pretty conclusive.” To his dismay, Dean sounded thoroughly amused by this turn of events. “You were nothing like this once we’d… addressed the situation yesterday.”

Yesterday was a blurry haze in the Omega’s memory but the words rang true enough. He wasn’t the type to shout and bawl or to fight and complain. People were more likely to complain he was too quiet than too loud and he certainly never dished out commands to people without invitation. Only it wasn’t Castiel Novak, lab technician and all-around introvert in control right about then – it was Castiel the Omega, needing a knot from his Alpha more than he’d ever needed anything.

Two fingers returned to probe his rim, sending him squirming under Dean’s palm as his body responded eagerly to the touch.

“Careful, Cas. It looks pretty sore down there.”

Not sore enough that his Omega didn’t desperately want those fingers inside him properly, Cas’s treacherous brain informed him. Though even as he thought it he knew that fingers wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the burning in him.

Dean’s fingers gently eased him open a little way and despite himself Cas whimpered at the feeling. It wasn’t pain, not exactly. Not quite pain but the part of his brain that wasn’t screaming for a knot could tell him straight away that anything bigger than a finger was going to be rather unpleasant.

“Sorry buddy, I think it’s bed rest for today. Yesterday did a number on you.”

This time the whimper that escaped Cas’s lips was one of intense frustration. “Isn’t there anything you can do?  Please, Dean, I’m burning up here.”

Dean’s hand stilled on his hip, as if a thought had stopped him in his tracks.

“What?”

“Nothing. I…”

“What, Dean?”

Even from his poor viewpoint, he was sure his Alpha was blushing. “Close your eyes”

He did as he was told and was rewarded almost instantly with a trail of teasing kisses all the way down his spine. Undeterred by the previous day’s events, Cas felt a stirring in his groin as his cock decided to take an interest in proceedings.

The kisses made their way to his tailbone and paused, waiting for permission. Another hissed plea from Castiel and strong hands moved to grip his cheeks, easing him apart for his Alpha’s view.

For a moment, the Omega tensed, waiting for the burn of penetration from another digit. But it didn’t come.

Instead, the brush of lips against his swollen rim sent him into a violent shudder of pleasure. “Fuck!”

Dean laughed softly, sending warm puffs of breath across the tender skin. “No baby, not that.”

Cas didn’t have the strength to argue the use of the pet name, nor Dean’s teasing manner. Every sense was flooded with _Dean_ as the Alpha’s warm tongue made its way in slow, torturous circles around his entrance before pressing inside him and sending a river of fresh slick all over the clean sheets.

Dean’s hands tightened their vice grip on his thighs and he growled a low, animal noise. Inside, Castiel glowed with pride in the knowledge that it was _his_ scent, _his_ slick that was driving the Alpha so wild.

His Alpha’s tongue pushed deeper, opening him up for the knot he craved. No, no knot today, Dean had been right. However his body craved Dean’s tongue there was no denying that this was the very limit of what he could handle after the night before.

As if in agreement, Cas felt his balls tighten and he moaned out loud at the warring sensations of the rough cotton at his erection and the velveteen touch of Dean’s tongue inside him.

“Dean. _Dean_. Oh fuck. _Dean.”_

The Alpha’s strong hands pinned his hips to the mattress, leaving his at the mercy of that wonderful mouth and his rapidly building orgasm.

In his overwrought state it only took a few minutes to send his body crashing over the edge. He came with a cry, biting down on the pillow beneath him to stifle the sound. Blackness swum at the edges of his vision as he felt his mate roll off to the side and pull him straight into a tight embrace.

Among their synchronised gasps for breath, he heard Dean mutter right in his ear: “Better?”

There was only one response to such a stupid question. Cas simply grinned and reached behind him to stroke his Alpha’s hard and leaking erection. “It will be. Just need to sort this out.”

 

** Crowley **

Waking up with the imprint of your laptop keyboard on your face did very little to improve anyone’s mood, ever. Waking up with the imprint of your laptop keyboard on your face and seeing the name “Alistair” flash up on your phone even less so.

Crowley felt it extremely unfair that he hadn’t even finished massaging the fresh indents out of his cheek before a knock on his office door sent his rapidly vibrating phone straight from his outstretched hand and onto the carpet. Clearly it was destined to be one of _those_ mornings.

“Dr Crowley!”

For a moment his entire brain stalled. _No._ Alistair on the other end of that incoming call was bad enough – this voice was coming from right outside.

With a groan Crowley pushed himself into a fully seated position and began assessing his options:

a)      Hide under the desk and pretend to be either missing or dead until Alistair leaves

b)      Open the door, kill Alistair with the heavy duty stapler and dispose of the body

c)       Climb out of his fourth floor office window

d)      Man up and face his responsibilities.

Crowley considered carefully for a moment and then reached for the heavy duty stapler.

“Crowley! I know you’re in there. Reception told me.”

Well, bollocks. Getting an alibi for murder was going to be really tricky if half the building knew Alistair was coming up to see him. (And he was almost certain that ‘Radio Meg’ would have made sure that everyone knew). Reluctantly, he returned the stapler to its rightful place, cast a longing glance at the slightly ajar window and barked “Come in.”

Despite the fact he was probably walking every bit as normally as any other person, Alistair still managed to give Crowley the impression that he was oozing into the room like a person-shaped vat of something particularly viscous and horrid. It wasn’t easy to place but something about the man could only really be described as ‘slimy’. Well, unless you remembered the existence of the word ‘odious’ and decided to use that instead. Every pore seemed to steam with a sort of smug malice that made Crowley want to punch the man and run away from him as fast as possible in equal measure.

He wasn’t giving that prick the satisfaction of actually getting up and offering him a chair anytime soon and so for several minutes the pair regarded each other through narrowed eyes before Alistair finally perched himself on a corner of Crowley’s desk (he made a mental note to bleach it thoroughly later) and strike up a conversation that one very sleepy head of research didn’t want to have.

“You have a report on the Omega incident for me?”

Crowley quickly minimised the Word document he was typing into, lest Alistair notice that the report in question currently consisted of two words, only one of which was suitable for printing.

“Working on it.”

Alistair tutted, sending Crowley’s blood pressure soaring. “You know, you really should have let me deal with him.”

Crowley glared. “I put my best paramedic on it.”

Alistair’s smug smile faded a notch. “Ah yes. The infamous Dean Winchester.”

If Dean was infamous in any way at all it was certainly news to Crowley but he supposed that he and Alistair had differing standards in… well… absolutely everything, ever.

“I have my concerns about Winchester, Crowley.” Alistair picked up Crowley’s pen and twirled it between his fingers. “I’ve had complaints. I think I shall check in on Novak for his own safety.”

Crowley snorted “Good luck with that.”

Alistair’s eyes narrowed. “You should have called me.”

“No bloody way.”

Headache forgotten, Crowley leapt to his feet to meet Alistair’s stare with a look which would not only have curdled milk, but probably killed the cow too. “Hell will freeze over before I invite one of your lot in to my hospital.”

Alistair gave a long sigh and folded his arms with the air of one about to explain a very simple concept to a very naughty and slightly ignorant child.

“ _Our lot_ are the leading experts in dealing with _problem_ Omegas, Crowley. Not your medic.”

“Castiel is not a _problem_ , Alistair.”

The other man laughed softly as he readjusted his jacket and made to leave. “We’ll see about that. I take it I will find the Omega at this Winchester’s apartment?”

Crowley said nothing. Tempting as it was to send Alistair over to interrupt the pair and hope Dean might kill him and save them both a lot of hassle, he’d meant it when he’d said that he wouldn’t let anyone like Alistair within ten feet of one of his workers.

“Tsk. Uncooperative as ever, I see. Well, I’ll let you be. But I’m warning you, Crowley, any more reckless endangerment of your staff and the district board will hear of it.”

The door slammed behind him, leaving Crowley mercifully alone. Bloody Alistair. The man was the worst kind of hothead Alpha Crowley had ever come across. Evidently Castiel’s earlier predicament provided him with some kind of sick turn on. Alistair probably liked nothing more than feeling a begging Omega underneath him, regardless of whether or not said Omega would want anything to do with him sober. Cas was just lucky he’d had his accident under Crowley’s watch.

Retrieving his discarded phone from under the desk, he grimaced and began to type:

_Alistair on his way over_

_Just hide or something_

_Don’t let him in_

_Crowley_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments make bunny Abaddon happy xx


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay on this one. Some rather horrible writer's block meant I rewrote this chapter about eighty times. Whoops. Hope you enjoy!

** Chapter 5 **

****

**_ Michael _ **

Michael Novak was not a happy man. That isn’t to say that something was currently spoiling his day or making life difficult; on the contrary, things were going rather well. Rather, to say that Michael Novak was not a happy man was more of a general observation which rarely ceased to be true. On the particular Wednesday morning in question, Michael had been faced with no problem more difficult than deciding which one of his collection of almost identical red ties he would wear to his next book signing. Of course, that was before the run in with the tabloid reporter.

Michael disliked reporters. This wasn’t particularly significant as Michael disliked most people with an opinion who weren’t him. People with a loud and annoying opinion were worst of all – especially when they felt the need to share it.

The reporter in question was clearly one of _those_ Omegas or worse – one of the Alphas who allowed those Omegas to be the way they were. It bewildered Michael that such people existed and yet, he often mused, if they didn’t he wouldn’t have found such a large and appreciative audience in the Omega community. Still, the ones who resolutely ignored his plight to better their pathetic little lives weren’t exactly his favourite people to run into.

The little worm who’d been making trouble at his press conference had been an Omega of the worst kind – unmated, unapologetic and unable to exhibit good manners in front of his Alpha betters. In fact, had he been blond Michael would have easily mistaken him for that infernal little brother he preferred not to talk about.

“Dr Novak, do you have any comment on claims that your books set Omega rights back fifty years?”

“Dr Novak! What are your views on Omegas choosing to remain unmated? Don’t they have that right?”

“Dr Novak, how do your Omega siblings feel about your views? I understand there is a family rift?”

A family rift. Yes, it was true enough if you could call his idiot little brother’s fit of pique a _rift_. Still, he intended to squash the issue as soon as possible - it wasn’t going to look good for his public image if reporters started showing an interest in Gabriel. Or Castiel for that matter.

His youngest brother worked in this latest city of his book tour, he seemed to recall. Something to do with medicine and Omega Biology or some such fool’s errand that would reflect badly on Michael himself if anyone found out. Still, Castiel _was_ his brother, it wouldn’t do to leave without at least saying ‘hello’ on his way through. Perhaps he could even gift him a copy of his new book. A little more focus on the important things in an Omega’s life would do Castiel the world of good, the boy was as tightly wound as a coiled spring and hopelessly shy into the bargain. Michael only wished Gabriel were as shy and quiet as the family’s youngest.

Pulling out his address book, Michael flicked through until he found the note his little brother had sent him months earlier, advising his new address. It was sorted then – he would drop by tomorrow and put those rumours of a family rift to bed once and for all.

He’d even take a signed copy of his new book as a present. Sometimes, Michael marvelled at how lucky Castiel really was to have a brother like him.

 

**_ Castiel _ **

Unfortunately, Michael wasn’t the only Novak with a pressing dilemma that afternoon. Had he wandered just a few streets from the ‘literary event of the Omega season’, he would have located his erstwhile baby brother busy trying to smother himself with Dean Winchester’s pillow.

Castiel wanted to shrivel up and disappear. No, better than that – he wanted to spontaneously combust with his own embarrassment and leave a burning trail of wreckage all over his Alpha’s bed. That felt an awful lot more suitably dramatic. A dramatic end to Castiel Novak’s career as a wanton little bitch and generally shameful example to everyone. An end to twenty four of the most humiliating hours of his life.

None of his actions had felt particularly shameful or humiliating when his heat had been in full flare, but his conscience seemed fairly sure that he could make up for lost time. From inside his pillow fort of self pity he listened to the steady patter of the shower and Dean’s quiet singing and despaired.

He _could_ leave, he realised. Leave now and avoid having to deal with the fallout of this… this _thing_. He already knew he wouldn’t though. He wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye to Dean even if he was fairly certain he wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye.

Damn it all, he missed his heat.

Cas sighed and cast the pillow to one side, replacing it with his hands. It was a long time since he’d had to deal with a post-heat comedown and the lack of practice was not making it any easier.

“I need a shower” he mumbled to himself. He ignored the part of his treacherous brain that immediately suggested he share Dean’s.

A shower. A shower was a good idea, he decided. It was probably a lot easier not to feel dirty when you weren’t caked in slick and sweat and come and whatever else they’d managed to add into the equation the previous night. He was fairly certain he hadn’t minded at the time.

As if his sudden comedown hadn’t been proof enough that his heat had broken, he was pretty sure his feet were getting cold. Freezing, in fact. Castiel curled up under the duvet and hugged his knees tight, missing his Alpha’s warmth already.

Post heat comedowns had always been a nightmare for him. It was part of the reason he’d gone into Omega medicine in the first place and three years without practice was only going to have made things worse.

A depressive episode usually hit first. Unsurprisingly, knowing that the cause was a sudden drop in endorphins didn’t serve to make him feel any better. There were supplements which could help but he hadn’t exactly come prepared.

An attachment stage usually followed quickly afterwards; wanting nothing more than to be close to another warm body and feel safe. That part was usually tolerable enough and the final stage – unshakable fatigue – usually knocked him out completely for a few hours. When he woke up after that he’d be more or less himself. The prospect didn’t exactly thrill him.

The way he saw it, he had two options once it was all done and dusted. One; stay put and attempt to deal with Dean Winchester like a normal human being or Two; flee the scene before he had to wake up and take responsibility for his actions.

With a pang of guilt Cas reached for his phone and prepared to beg Sam to come and rescue him.

**_ Sam _ **

On a scale of one-to-surprising, Sam considered getting a woebegone text from Castiel approximately 24 hours after his accidental overdose to be somewhere between “The Pope is a Catholic” and “bears shit in the woods”. Poor guy. Sam had dealt with more than enough Omegas in a bad comedown to know that Cas probably wanted the ground to open up and swallow him. He was grateful that Dean had taken his suggestions on board for once and given his friend some space whilst the worst took hold.

Looking down at the message on his phone screen he decided against asking how the Omega was feeling and instead tapped out the closest thing he could manage to practical advice without sounding as harsh as Crowley.

_It’s hormonal. You know_

_It is deep down. It will seem better_

_S_

_X_

His words felt like empty platitudes. Sure, the post-heat slump would clear up and hopefully take its lashings of low self-esteem and general urges to go and hide under the bed with it but that wasn’t exactly the whole issue for Cas. The poor guy had been in love with his idiot brother since the moment he’d clapped eyes on him and there was no way that little situation would have been helped by clapping eyes on a lot more.

Sam shuddered at the unwelcome mental images that had let themselves into his brain and quickly evicted them. He hoped it had at least gone well. It wasn’t as if Cas was without his issues – hell, no Omega got into this kind of job without some kind of first-hand experience urging them to help make things better for others. Balthazar had once told him that he didn’t think Cas had slept with anyone in all the time he’d known him but surely there must have been somebody. From what he knew of Omegas, no one would put themselves through three years of heats without any help at all.

His phone pinged again and he breathed a sigh of relief. Presumably Cas hadn’t locked himself in a cupboard somewhere if he still had cell reception.

_I don’t think I can_

_Ever face Dean again._

_Which is a problem since_

_I need him to drive me home._

_C xx_

Sam frowned down at his screen as considered his options. Either he could leave Cas to eventually _have_ to speak to Dean and make an attempt to work through his feelings, or he could show mercy. He knew which one was a lot more tempting after so many months of watching his friend pine for his idiot big brother. He also knew which one wouldn’t leave him feeling like a horrible human being for the foreseeable future.

_I’ll come and get you._

_Do you need clothes bringing?_

_S xx_

He could almost feel the gratitude through the screen when his phone buzzed moments later.

_Yes. Yes. Yes._

_C xxxx_

Sam picked up his car keys with a sigh. Time to see how much of a mess yesterday’s little accident had caused.

He was within sight of his brother’s apartment block when his phone buzzed back to life.

_Alistair._

**__ **

**_ Crowley _ **

It wasn’t long after the vile Alistair slithered out of his office that Crowley decided he needed a nice cup of tea and a biscuit. A good strong cuppa might take away some of the unpleasant aftertaste of sharing breathing space with a specimen of living proof that humans once shared DNA with lizards. Ugh.

He retrieved his travel kettle from under his desk and went in search of a suitable plug. This sort of morning called for a proper builder’s brew and no one could convince him otherwise.

A jarring buzz left him abandoning his plight with a sigh and meandering back to the desk just in time to see the word “Dean Winchester calling” flash up on the screen. Well, that was likely to be some good news at least.

He flicked his thumb against the screen to pick up the call and settled back down in his desk chair, tea mission forgotten.

“Dean. My old chum, get my text?”

The voice on the other end was softer than he expected. Trying not to freak out Cas, no doubt. It seemed a fairly pointless task, the poor kid was going to flip when he heard Alistair was looking for him.

“Yeah, it’s me, any idea how we get rid of that clown?”

Straight to the point as always, Crowley thought to himself. Still, in the current circumstances it was probably the best thing.

“Stay put, he doesn’t know for sure where you are.”

He heard what sounded like a sigh of relief from Dean and wondered quite how pleased to avoid the confrontation he was. Probably counting his lucky stars that he wasn’t about to be arrested for assaulting a doctor in the line of his duty because there wasn’t a chance in hell Dean would let Alistair touch Cas in his current state.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I refused to tell him. Just keep quiet.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line and Crowley could almost taste the reticence in Dean’s voice when he finally muttered out a “thanks Dr Crowley.”

“Don’t mention it.”

 

**_ Dean _ **

Dean wasn’t quite sure he’d ever been as glad that he’d given Crowley his private number. Actually, he was sure. This was without doubt the best use of it Crowley had ever made. A quick glance at Cas’s panicked face made him gladder still that he hadn’t answered the door unprepared.

“I’ll get rid of him. Promise.”

Cas shook his head violently, grabbing Dean’s arm with both hands.

“No. Don’t go. Don’t answer it. Please.”

Dean paused and turned to meet the other man’s eyes. The desperation he could feel in Cas’s grip was reflected all over his wide eyes and clenched jaw and before he even knew what he was doing Dean had sat down on the bed and swept his Omega into a tight hug. The tiny mewl of relief at his ear was proof enough that he’d done the right thing, he thought to himself as he trailed patterns up and down his friend’s back in the best gesture of comfort he could manage. This was phase two, as far as his patchy memories of training could be sure – following straight on from ‘the crash’ came the clingy phase when all the Omega wanted was their Alpha’s protection. Despite himself, Dean felt relieved. At least this time he could provide what Cas needed most.

Another flurry of knocks at the door had Cas pressing in even closer, as if he wanted to disappear into Dean completely. Dean shot the door his best death glare as if that might do the trick in getting the damn thing to stop making that sound. When that didn’t work he distracted himself with burying his nose in Cas’s hair, still fluffy and bed-headed from the night before, and exhaled in exasperation.

“S’ok. He’ll get bored eventually.”

A few torturous seconds of silence passed before a muffled complaint made itself heard through the thick pine of the door itself.

“Winchester. I can see your car outside.”

Dean muffled a curse against Cas’s temple and let his fingers resume their soothing patterns.

“Sssh. It’s okay.”

If it was around eleven now, Dean thought to himself, running through some speedy mental calculations – if he remembered his training right they could more or less count on Cas normalising by late afternoon. The clingy phase didn’t usually last for long and after that they had the sleepy phase which didn’t exactly require a lot of specialist support. As if concurring, Cas let out a little yawn against his shoulder and snuggled in closer. Apparently the sleepy phase was well on its way.

“Winchester!”

Dean was about to yell back that he wasn’t home or something equally unhelpful when he heard a second voice and quickly realised that he wasn’t the Winchester Alistair had been speaking to at all.

“Alistair.”

Sam’s voice was polite but cold, giving no sugar coating to his feelings toward the other man.

“I’m looking for your brother.”

Even through the wall, Dean knew that Sam was currently fixing the slimeball with the kind of look which would make any sensible person flee to building as quickly as possible.

“He isn’t here.”

There was a shuffling sound as if Alistair was positioning himself for either a fight or a quick escape. The latter if he had any sense.

“And how would you know?”

“Because he asked me to pick something up for him. From his apartment.”

There was a long silence before Sam spoke again.

“Alistair. You need to get out of my way, you’re obstructing a doctor in the execution of his duty of care.”

Sam’s story carried more than a moderate level of bullshit but _damn_ he sounded convincing. Unfortunately not quite convincing enough.

“You’re not a doctor yet, Winchester. If the Omega needs treatment he should be referred to the-“

“-Castiel has a name.” Dean heard the suppressed anger in Sam’s voice and wasn’t remotely surprised. His brother hated the guy, anyone with any sense did and Sam had plenty. “He has a name and he does _not_ need treatment from anyone who is going to refer to him as ‘the’ anything. Clear?”

Cas shifted in his arms at that point and pressed a string of tiny kisses to Dean’s jaw. Any hope of hearing the rest of the conversation vanished as he turned his full attention to the man in his arms and tugged him gently into a more secure embrace.

“Hey buddy.”

Cas made a sleepy nose and continued his path towards Dean’s ear, only to jump back at the sound of the door opening.

Dean froze, eyes quickly scanning the room for anything he could use to…. To _what,_ exactly? Deal with Alistair? That wasn’t a real option and deep down he knew it. So what _were_ his options, exactly? Stay put and wait for the inevitable?

“Dean?”

It was Sam. Dean breathed out a long sigh of relief and then mentally kicked himself. Of course it was Sam – who else had a key? He looked up to speak to his brother but something in the other man’s demeanour made him think better of it. Instead he settled for what seemed like a safer option.

“Hey Sammy.”

He was rewarded with the kind of tight smile his brother often gave when he was avoiding saying something very uncomfortable indeed. The idea didn’t make him feel all that great.

“Hey Dean.” He nodded toward the dark head currently nestled against Dean’s shoulder and shrugged awkwardly. “I’m here to take Cas home, he good to go?”

_Go?_ Every one of Dean’s instincts roared at the suggestion. _His_ Omega was not going to _go_ anywhere. Certainly not anywhere with another Alpha. He shook his head to clear it and tried to gather his thoughts.

“Go?”

Sam folded his arms. “Yes, ‘go’. His heat’s over, you got him through it now give him a chance to sleep it off and get himself back to normal.”

Dean didn’t realise he was tightening his grip until Cas’s soft whimper snapped him out of his reverie. He hurriedly whispers an apology into his Omega’s dark hair and squeezed him gently in reassurance. _No one is going to take you away_ he wanted to whisper _no one._

“Dean.”  

Sam took a few steps closer and held out his arms. “Come on Dean. You both need a chance to come down and think about what you want. You know I’m right.”

He did, but it didn’t make letting go of Cas any easier.

“Dean, I know Cas. You need to give him some space otherwise… just give him to me. Before you do something you shouldn’t.”

Dean swallowed hard and forced himself to nod. “Okay. Alright. Give me a minute.”

Disentangling himself from Cas’s warm embrace went against every instinct, Alpha and human, that he had but somehow he managed to relax his grip enough to let a sleepy Castiel sit up and offer his arms to Sammy instead.

He didn’t watch as his brother scooped his friend up into his arms and away from his own. It was safest not to, especially when every sound Cas made had him gripping the edge of the bed to keep from leaping up and snatching him back.

He was being ridiculous, he knew. Whatever he and Cas had got up to in their heat-fuelled haze, it had been a strange mix of hormones, necessity and mutual attraction and they needed to sort out what was what before things went too far. Yes, on some level he knew that and respected it. On another level he didn’t care so long as he could wrap himself back around Cas as soon as possible and pick up where they’d left off.

“Thanks, Dean. For looking after Cas.”

Sam sounded almost apologetic as he shifted Cas in his arms and started his way back to the door. “I know he’s going to appreciate it when… when he’s more himself. Just try to be patient, okay?”

Dean nodded. It seemed safest.  Out of the corner of his eye he watched Cas nuzzle Sam’s neck and his anger flared. Fists gripped the duvet and he tried to divert his thoughts to something, _anything_ else.

“Dean?”

Cas’s voice jerked him from his concentration and he sat up, searching out his Omega’s gaze from the doorway.

“Yeah?”

Even in his sleepy state, Cas blushed before he spoke. “Thank you. I’ll… I’ll see you soon?”

Dean couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his face at that.

“Yeah. Yeah Cas, yeah you will. Sleep well.”

“You too.”

He waited until the door slammed shut behind his brother and his Omega before he let himself release the howl of frustration he was holding.


	7. Chapter 6 -In which Doctor Sam gives a lesson in seatbelt safety

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the morning after the night before and Crowley has a bombshell for Dean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's late! I had terrible writer's block on this bridging part (the good news is I used the time to write most of the next few chapters!)

** Chapter 6 **

** Sam **

Despite his mumbled protests that he was wide awake and perfectly capable of walking back to his own apartment, Cas fell fast asleep in Sam’s arms before they had even reached his car. Then, after being grudgingly nudged awake so he could climb into said car and connect his seat belt in the appropriate and legal manner that Sam instructed, dozed off again before the Alpha had even had the chance to start the engine.

Sam reached over to feel his forehead, making sure his friend wasn’t slipping back into the active stage of heat. It seemed pretty unlikely, given how contented and sleepy he was but he was _not_ going to be the doctor (or almost doctor) who made assumptions and put a patient at risk. There were enough Omega doctors around who weren’t as well trained or attentive as they should be and that made it even more important for guys like him to step up to the plate, not shirk responsibility just because somebody else looked like they wouldn’t mind taking over. Cas trusted him and he was going to make sure he was worthy of it.

Once he was satisfied that Cas was safe, sleeping, and not in any immediate danger, Sam fastened his own seatbelt and dialled the Omega’s address into his sat nav. At least he remembered from his previous visits that the apartment block had a lift. However much he liked Castiel, carrying his unconscious body up four flights of stairs wasn’t exactly his idea of good fun.

It was probably Dean’s right about then, but it certainly wasn’t his.

Sam felt for his brother, he really did. These weren’t exactly ideal circumstances in which to strike up a new relationship, especially not when his brother had finally been getting closer to just _asking Cas out and getting it over with_. Cas would be mortified when he finally slept off the effects of the drug and, knowing Cas, he’d retreat into his lab and try very hard to pretend that the whole thing never happened. From a purely selfish perspective, Sam calculated that that would mean at least another three years of putting up with longing glances and wistful sighs. Wonderful.

He had to shoulder some of the responsibility himself, mind you. If he had just pushed Dean a little harder to make a move they might not be in this situation at all. Stabbing yourself in the arm with a Heat drug was more easily dealt with when you had an Alpha boyfriend to take you home and… do things that Sam didn’t really want to think about in the context of his brother and friend. Having to get treated by your crush was only ever going to make an embarrassing situation a hundred times worse.

Still, it wasn’t as if Cas hadn’t had options. Sam couldn’t help a wry smile at the pang of misguided jealousy that hit when he considered how, despite all of his misgivings and vehement insistence that he would rather suffer multiple organ failure that face Dean, Cas had still chosen him over Sam or Crowley. Well, the second one he could understand, but Cas could at least have pretended to consider _him_ as a viable option. Even if it was only to protect his feelings.

The Omega chose that moment to mumble something in his sleep and reach out, frowning when his fingers closed around nothing. Sam watched him, fingers twitching against the leather of the steering wheel in an urge to comfort the man. Any Omega wanted to spend the sleep phase curled up around his or her mate but that was a problem in and of itself – Dean wasn’t Cas’s mate and the whole situation was only going to get more complicated if he spent the next few days bonding with a man who (despite recent complications) he barely knew. As cruel as Sam felt to be separating them now, it was for the best in the long run.

A tiny sigh of “Dean” made it past Cas’s lips and Sam smiled to himself. At least the previous day had done nothing to make Cas any less fond of his brother. The rest they could work out after they’d both had a decent night’s sleep.

** Crowley **

If there was one thing Crowley hated, it was ethical dilemmas. Well, actually no: if there was _one_ thing Crowley hated it was people putting sugar in his tea. If there were two things he hated, it was ethical dilemmas and people putting sugar in his tea. And people forgetting to buy the right kind of digestive biscuits.

Three! There were three things. Anyway, they weren’t all that relevant. Two of them, anyway. Well, one of them if you considered the fact that he really, really needed a cup of tea as that moment. A digestive biccie would help matters too.

He paced the length of his office a few more times, willing the solution to make itself known by means of some sort of sign or flash of inspiration. His brain remained uncooperative, however, so he settled for reviewing his options once again.

He could do nothing, of course, that was option number one Castiel wasn’t his patient any longer so technically he was within his rights to leave the lovebirds to it and hope everything worked out for the best. Which it did. On occasion. Just not very often.

The other option was to spill the beans to Dean Winchester and, aside from the obvious legal and ethical issues, that was Crowley’s first choice. In the few years he had known him, Winchester had proved himself to be conscientious, reliable, hard working and good hearted – simultaneously exactly the sort of person that Crowley hated with every ounce of his being and exactly the sort of person the situation needed. Dean wasn’t about to run screaming for the hills when he found out (it didn’t seem likely, anyway), and when he had finished _not_ running and screaming he would want to help. Crowley was certain of that, at least. Well, fairly certain.

The file taunted him from the desk, silently pointing out that this was firmly on Crowley’s head both personally and professionally. If he had just managed to be a better doctor and a better person this whole thing could have been avoided. If Castiel occasionally said ‘no’ to people and kept a proper grip on a lab rabbit when giving injections it could have been avoided too but Crowley reckoned the Omega had suffered enough without his boss lumping the blame on him too.

The firm rap of Dean Winchester’s knuckles against the door snapped him out of his reverie. One hand reaching out to grab the file, he cleared his throat, steeled his nerves and barked:

“Come in.”

** Dean **

If there was one thing that made Dean Winchester sure that Dr Crowley was up to something, it was…well, it was the fact he was acting like Dr Crowley. If there was one thing that made him even surer than that, it was Dr Crowley _not_ acting like Dr Crowley. Particularly when he was being far too nice.

The file in his boss’s outstretched hands was dusty, as if it had been residing in a storeroom for a few years and faded, like it wasn’t really important enough to tuck away out of direct sunlight. If it weren’t for the way that Crowley’s white knuckles tightened around the thing, Dean wouldn’t have thought it was important in any way, shape or form.

“You should read this.” Crowley extended the file toward him and hesitated. “Actually, you shouldn’t. It’s about as confidential as confidential gets.”

The doctor ducked his head and sighed, dropping the offending file back onto the desk. “Dean, do you remember the Milton case?”

Dean nodded and tried to ignore the knot that was forming in the pit of his stomach. Of course he remembered the Milton case. You didn’t forget being dragged into a court room to give evidence in defence of your boss in a massive malpractice lawsuit. At least not quickly.

“You breached patient confidentiality because An… Miss Milton’s life was in danger. I remember.”

Crowley chewed his lip in thought, as if remembering something he’d rather keep buried deep in the furthest recesses of his subconscious.

“Stop looking so worried, Winchester, you’re making me nervous.”

Much as Dean would have liked to point that that he would have much less to be worried about if Crowley wasn’t waving Cas’s personal files around whilst invoking various parts of his Hippocratic Oath, it didn’t seem particularly wise. Instead, he let the good doctor toy with the edge of the file a little longer before making a face and finally shoving it firmly into Dean’s possession.

“I know Castiel likes you. Hell, I know you like him. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to let you run headlong into something your pretty little brain isn’t equipped to handle.”

The file felt oddly heavy in Dean’s hands as he turned it over and over, searching for any clue as to its contents.

“Winchester… _Dean_ , I need you to understand that what happened in the lab yesterday might have made a bad situation… well…”  
  
“Worse?” Dean volunteered. Crowley shook his head.

“No. Well… maybe. Maybe worse, maybe better. Either way, a _lot_ more volatile. Go on, open it. You’re bound to have questions.”

Dean’s fingers stalled at the edge of the cover. It didn’t feel right. It was Cas’s personal medical file, for heaven’s sake – his private and confidential file. But it was also something that Crowley thought he needed to see. Something very important indeed. Dean drew a breath and flick open the file before he could change his mind.

“Castiel Novak. Research Scientist. Presented with…” he felt the colour rush from his face as the meaning of the words in front of him became clear. Oh crap. Oh _crap crap crap._

“Presented with uncontrolled bleeding and septic shock.” Crowley finished with the wearied tone of one who had read the words far too often. “initial surgery prevented loss of life but side effects are likely to include loss of fertility and sexual dysfunction.” he began picking at a stray thread on his trousers to avoid Dean’s incredulous gaze. “And that initial report was a good observation, if I do say so myself. Until his little mishap the other day, our dear Castiel hadn’t had a heat in nearly three years.”

The worried feeling was climbing out of his stomach and into his chest, squeezing tighter and tighter as it travelled. It squeezed until it hurt to breathe and Dean’s head was swimming with fear.

“I…I had no idea.”

The doctor met his eyes and attempted a half-smile. “Even if you had, you did what you had to do. It’s what comes next that you can do differently.”

“Next?” Well, Dean thought, at least someone’s optimistic. He highly doubted there was going to be much of a ‘next’.

“Yeah, ‘next.’ Take the rest of the day off and give Castiel my best regards, won’t you?”

Dean nodded mutely, the file a crushing weight in his grip already.

“And Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Try not to treat him any differently. He’ll hate it if you do.”

** Castiel **

By the time he slept off the last of his heat, Cas was relieved to find that without a little (or a lot) of help from wayward hormones, his level of complete mortification at the past 24 hours had reduced to simply wanting to crawl under a rock and never come out. Perhaps he _could_ work from under a rock in future, he was sure that Crowley would understand. After all, a scientist actually dying of embarrassment in the middle of your lab would create an awful lot of paperwork.

Sam had thoughtfully left a bottle of water and a sandwich within reach along with a note so at least there was no imminent reason to get out of bed. He was bone tired, as if he had just run a marathon and ached as though he had probably been hit by a truck on the way round. He was lucky, he knew that. Lucky to have nothing more than a heat hangover to show for his misadventure. That was the last time he tried to inject a lab rabbit. It was cruel, anyway. He had probably deserved the kick and subsequent self-stabbing that had followed for even thinking it was okay to jab something small and furry with a needle in the name of science.

Once he’d taken a long drink from the water and carefully prised open the sandwich to try and ascertain what was inside (aubergine? Who the hell put aubergine in a poor, innocent sandwich?) his attention turned to the note which by now was languishing ominously on the bedside table. Cas did his best to ignore it. After all, it probably read something like “hope you’re feeling better, here is a sandwich” and he already knew that there was a sandwich so there was no reason at all to open it.

Only it probably didn’t say anything about a sandwich. It was probably some well-meaning advice about speaking to Dean before everything got super awkward and that was precisely the kind of thing Cas didn’t need in his life right then. Not that he was against speaking to Dean, per se. More that it was difficult to do that whilst simultaneously hiding under his duvet and pretending not to exist. Plus there was the very real danger that he might spontaneously combust with shame the moment he heard Dean’s voice. Mostly that, actually.

As a testament to Sam’s culinary efforts (and in no way an excuse to prolong the inevitable), Cas made sure to finish every crumb of the sandwich, chewing extra slowly to ensure that he got its full benefit. No sense hurrying these things.

The note sat in his peripheral vision all the while, taunting him.

It was only when he realised that he was too wiped out to even contemplate getting out of bed to do the washing up that he gave in, reached for the horrible white square of awfulness and carefully folded it out.

 

_Cas,_

_Crowley says to take the rest of the week off_

_I say to spend at least some of it giving my brother a chance_

_To explain himself. He feels awful and I really don’t want_

_To deal with his pity party for longer than I have to._

_Sam_

_P.S. Gabe’s in town and if you don’t call Dean I’ll tell him where you live._

_P.P.S. I don’t make idle threats._

 

‘You sneaky little bastard’ was all Castiel could think in response to that. Trust Sam to figure out the one person he’d rather talk to about all of this less than Dean.

His eyes fell to his phone, plugged in and charging (because Sam wouldn’t want him to use a flat battery as an excuse now, would he?) and he sighed heavily. Best get it over with.

There were two messages blinking up at him from the display and he opened them immediately, hoping at least one would be Sam rescinding all threats and assuring him that he needn’t speak to Dean until the Alpha had had at least, say, a decade or so to forget what had happened.

He should have been careful what he wished for.

_Cas,_

_On second thoughts, it might be_

_Best to keep your distance. I just_

_Saw Alistair’s car at the hospital._

_They say there’s going to be an inquiry._

_Sam_

%MCEPASTEBIN%


	8. Chapter 7 - In which tea saves the day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair and Azazel pay a visit to the hospital. Dean has a bad morning. General destruction ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so so sorry for my slowness, lovely readers. But I did at least pass all those nasty distracting exam things whilst I was away (hurrah!). Hope some of you are still reading and enjoy the next chapter. Much love, Hari xxx

** Chapter 7 **

** Crowley **

If Crowley had known how his day was going to go when he first woke up, he probably wouldn’t have bothered. Duvet days very rarely involved having to share oxygen with odious flesh wastes like Alistair and Azazel and even if they did, there would at least be a handy pillow with which to smother them both when the opportunity arose. Crowley didn’t have a pillow handy as he sat in the chilly, sterile room the hospital management used for particularly unwelcome guests or awkward meetings. It struck him as something of a terrible shame.

Still, he supposed he could always punch Alistair’s smug face if he could persuade enough witnesses to look the other way. Given how most of the hospital staff felt about the interloper, he suspected more than a few of them would be willing to hold the tosspot’s arms behind his back whilst he did. The idea was almost enough to lighten the crushing hopelessness of the current situation. Almost.

“We’ve heard quite enough excuses for one day, Crowley.” Azazel tapped the pen he’d stolen earlier from Crowley’s office against the desk and smirked. “We’ll need to see Castiel before we can go anywhere. You see, Omega protection is of the… er… _highest_ priorities of our division and we have legitimate cause for concern.”

“A quick examination and interview of the patient will suffice.” Alistair added. His smirk sent Crowley’s skin crawling more than the pitiful excuse for custard the hospital canteen had once tried to serve up as food. There was a special place in hell reserved for all things disgusting and yellow – he firmly believed that.

“Castiel is recovering and must not be disturbed.” Crowley flashed his best smile and attempted to gesture the pair out of the door. “There is no cause for concern, the issue was dealt with in a professional manner.”

Alistair raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? Because _we_ seem to have it on _very_ good authority indeed that you let one of the Alpha’s from your paramedic team paw at the poor thing against his will until he was spirited off to God only knows where with the brute.”

The cheap desk buckled a little under Crowley’s white knuckled grip. He itched to wrap his fingers around the smarmy bastard’s throat instead.

“Dean Winchester.” he spat, “Is not a brute. Nor is Castiel a victim. You can both take your little fantasy grievance and file it back at head office. Or;” he smiled like a knife as Azazel drew his chair back a few inches, sensibly positioning himself out of direct garrotting range. “You can shove it right up your arse.”

Alistair didn’t rise to the provocation. Instead, he leant back in his chair and smirked as Crowley’s expression raced from furious to anxious and straight back to homicidal.

“There _will_ be an enquiry, Dr Crowley. There is no escaping that. And I think _that,”_ there was a tentative knock at the door. “is our first interviewee.”

Crowley sank bank into his chair and silently prayed that whoever the poor unfortunate victim was, they were well prepared. Preferably with some kind of automatic weapon and an iron clad alibi.

His eyes strayed to his phone and he found himself wondering, not for the first time, if there was something he could do to help Dean. That’s who Alistair was out to get, he was sure of that. That toad didn’t give two hoots about Castiel’s welfare and, now that the opportunity to grope the poor kid had passed, he would swiftly lose interest in the Omega. Unless, of course, he worked out precisely how much Dean Winchester cared for Castiel. Then they both needed to watch out. Alistair wouldn’t stop as slapping a misconduct charge on Dean then – he would make sure that any happiness the young Alpha had was taken from him.

Crowley shuddered as he always did when he considered Alistair’s likely plans for Dean. The worst part? He wasn’t sure the kid had ever done a damn thing to deserve it.

Staring into his sad and cold cup of tea, Crowley gave a defeated sigh.

** Sam **

Sam checked his phone for what felt like the hundredth time and sighed, shifting from foot to foot in an anxious fidget. Surely Cas would pick up his messages at some point, right? Because they needed to get together and get their respective stories straight and _fast_. In the harsh light of day the logic that had seemed so watertight was springing leak after leak and if his brother was going to get out of this without a serious injunction or worse it was absolutely _imperative_ that they were all on the same page.

In hindsight, Sam chastised himself, maybe he should have manned up and been there for his friend himself. Sure, it would have been a million shades of awkward but at least he and Castiel had a trusting professional relationship that dozen of their colleagues could attest to. Aside from Sam and maybe Balthazar down in Cas’s lab there was no one who could swear blind to the investigators that Dean would never have anything other than Castiel’s best interests at heart. As far as everyone else was concerned, the pair barely knew each other. Sure, they’d probably noticed the furtive looks and the blushes when their eyes met once in a while but that wasn’t _trust_. More importantly, it wasn’t a professional relationship based on a mutual understanding and it was just their luck that the official guidelines recommended just that.

The door swung open and Sam braced himself to face Alistair’s sneer. It was, of course, worse than his imagination when he finally looked up and caught the slimeball’s gaze for real. It always was. Sam was afflicted by the sudden need to go and swim in a vat of bleach.

“Ah, Samuel, how good of you to join us.”

Peering around the door, Sam caught sight of Crowley, head buried in his hands. It was far from a reassuring sight.

“Take a seat.”

Sam did as he was told, positioning himself on the same side of the table as his boss and hoping against hope that Crowley hadn’t already dropped them all in it. It would, of course, have been easier to stick to the plan in general had they been able to formulate a damn plan in the first instance. Alastair and his cronies’ ambush has put paid to any hope of that.

His eyes fell upon the file in front of him. It was pretty unremarkable as far as files went but he was willing to bet without even sneaking a peek inside the front cover that it was Dean’s very own personnel file. Those bastards were just too predictable sometimes. If they couldn’t get to Cas they would make damn sure that they ran a fine tooth comb over every tiny aspect of Dean’s own career until they found enough dirt to cause some real problems. Dean was a good paramedic, there was no doubt about that, but everyone screwed up at some point.

Sam knew, with a heavy heart, that all they really needed to do was keep digging. Somewhere along the line there would have been a breach or a complaint and it wasn’t as if people like Alistair were above making it up if they couldn’t find what they needed.

“I have some questions about your brother.” Alistair began. To Sam’s right, Crowley rolled his eyes. He stifled the urge to reciprocate and instead held Alistair’s gaze with a guardedly neutral expression.

“Go ahead.”

“Your brother is unmated, yes?”

He didn’t like where this was going – not one little bit.

“That’s right.”

“An unmated Alpha?” the smirk grew, filling Sam with the overwhelming desire to wipe it off his face. Preferably with violence. Or fire.

“Yes.”

“An unmated Alpha, working among both mated and unmated Omega on a daily basis?” Holy crap on a stick, the bastard was enjoying this.

Sam knew that Azazel was smirking into his notes. Idiot. Anyone who’d worked with Dean would attest to his professionalism, he was sure of that. What he wasn’t so sure of was if they would manage to do so in a way that Alistair and his cronies couldn’t twist into a stick to beat his brother with. After all, it was a well known talent of his.

“Yes. Yes he is.”

“What do you think attracted your brother to such a line of work?”

Beside him, Crowley was clenching his jaw so tightly, Sam could hear it creak.

“He likes to save people. That’s just Dean. Paramedic was a natural choice.”

Alistair’s eyes narrowed in annoyance and Sam mentally chalked up a few points under his own name. Surely Alistair couldn’t claim that every paramedic who set foot in the hospital had a vocation borne out of sexual predation? The idea was… well, it was as ludicrous as implying in the first place that Dean would ever hurt Castiel. It simply wasn’t going to happen.

“I see. And he was on duty on the third floor the day of the incident?”

So that was their angle: try to pretend that Dean hadn’t been acting in a professional capacity at all. Well, that eventuality they had at least prepared for.

“No. Castiel asked for him specifically.”

He watched as Alistair’s lip curled with someone that looked suspiciously like jealousy and he shuddered. That creep’s obsession with his friend was unsettling at the best of times but even more so when he was so obviously willing to take out a good paramedic’s career to further his prospects.

“And why, pray tell, would he do that?”

Sam’s response was cut off by the slamming open of the door and the sudden arrival of the so-called “leading witness” of the whole investigation. Balthazar had turned up for his interview at last, it seemed, and Sam could only hope that he’d been able to reach Cas and warn him what was going on.

The Beta whirled around to face Alistair, out of breath from his jog up the stairs and red-faced with anger from what he had overheard.

“Because they’re together.” He gasped out at last. Sam quickly hid his surprise and instead nodded his assertion. “Cas and Dean are in a relationship. Have been for weeks.”

** Balthazar **

As far as awful plans went, this was somewhere in between “using a toaster as a bath toy” and “jumping from 30,000 feet without a parachute.” Heck, it was actually probably worse than both of those due to, you know, NOT BEING TOO DEAD TO FACE THE FREAKING CONSEQUENCES AFTERWARDS.

It was Gabriel’s fault. The only real source of information they had on this kind of case was what they’d been able to dredge up via Google and they had been running seriously short on ideas when Gabriel had stumbled upon a report from a year previously that looked like it could be exactly what they needed. And also some clickbait entitled ’15 ways you’ve been using onions wrong your WHOLE LIFE” which had somewhat detracted from their otherwise noble cause for about ten minutes and an interesting interlude where they had attempted to sculpt swans out of root vegetables.

Anyhow, the article (once they had discovered to their disappointment that parsnip craft was not as fun as it looked) had told them all about a previous misconduct case which had been thrown out after it had emerged that the Alpha is question was in fact the partner of the Omega patient. The tribunal had been happy to rule to incident as a domestic matter and that had been case closed. There was just the very, very obvious issue that Dean and Cas weren’t exactly a couple.

And had both had their phones off all day.

And were going to be interviewed themselves.

Crap.

It had seemed like such a good idea until he had actually switched his brain on and realised that he had managed to make everything worse in his moment of panic.

Alistair was fixing him with the sort of gaze people usually reserved for looking at their restaurant dinner when it’s sorely disappointed them. It made him feel anxious. And sort of hungry.

“Well now… that changes everything, doesn’t it, Sammy? Honestly, why didn’t you just _say_ something, mm?”

It struck Balthazar that, on a scale of 1 to “not convinced”, Alistair was… well, you get the general idea. He wasn’t having any of it. Bugger.

“Take a seat, Dr…”

“It’s Balthazar, Sir.”

Alistair flashed another one of his culinary inspired smiles and nodded to him to sit down.

“Now then, all we really need is for Castiel to get in, corroborate your story, and then we can all go home?”

Was it cold in here? It must have been cold. Why else would he be suppressing the urge to start shaking?

“Absolutely, Sir.”

Azazel turned to regard them both and smiled like a knife.

“Of course, if you’re lying to me, the consequences will be very severe indeed.”

Balthazar swallowed. Surely Cas would check his messages before answering his summons. _Surely_.

He forced a smile that didn’t belie his terror. “Yes Sir.”

Alistair’s pocket suddenly lit up, drawing three sets of eyes to where they immediately wished they had never looked. Balthazar found himself hoping against hope that it was a telemarketer. _Please not Cassie, Please not Cassie._

“Ah, Lillith, thank you. Yes, send him up please.”

** Castiel **

They were so screwed.

So very, very screwed.

From the moment Cas had entered the interview room and seen the expressions on the others’ faces, he’d known just how screwed they were.

Alistair knew that Crowley would never have left him there to suffer maybe permanent damage whilst he filled out paperwork, interviewed Alphas or called in the county team. The bastard knew they’d cut corners and dammit he was going to make sure they suffered for it.

And if the smirk on the assbutt’s face was anything to go by, he had everything he needed to get the job done.

“Castiel, how good of you to join us. Take a seat, would you.”

He tried not to wince as he lowered himself into the chair between Sam and Crowley, he really did, but _ouch_ the lack of padding had not made it any easier. He didn’t miss the way Alistair’s smirk widened at his discomfort. No doubt he was already composing his misconduct report to head office.

“You’ll be pleased to know that we’ve nearly reached our conclusion today. All that remains is for you to corroborate what your colleagues here have told us and you’ll all be free to go.”

Balthazar was shooting him a pleading look, no doubt pegging all of his hopes on a sudden ability to develop telepathy and tell his friend _what the actual hell_ _he is supposed to say_. Needless to say, his attempts are ineffective.

Next to him, Sam made a gesture which was undoubtedly supposed to mean… _something_. All Cas could do in response was shake his head and silently pray that he figures out the script and _soon_.

“Sir?” Azazel shifted closer to his boss and brought his phone screen into the other man’s view. “Dean Winchester just arrived in the car park.”

This was it. The realisation hit Cas like a shock of cold water.

No.

Wait.

That was _actual_ cold water.

All over him.

“Sorry, pudding.” Crowley quickly righted his toppled mug and began making a show of trying to pat him down. “Oh no, look, you’re soaked. Better get you under the hand driers. Come along.”

It only took Cas’s brain a few seconds to shift into gear and realise what his boss had done. Time enough at least to seize the proffered hand and bolt from the room before either of the inspectors could stop them.

A safe distance from the interview room, Crowley skid to a halt and clutched both of Cas’s hands in his.

“Cassie, you’ve got to play along, it was all we could think of.”

“I get that, but play along with _what_ exactly?” his mind was racing through the possibilities, each more ludicrous than the last.

“You and Dean. We told them he was your boyfriend at the time of the incident.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. _Oh._ Get down there, Cassie. And for the sake of us all – make it look convincing.”

** Dean **

After the whirlwind of the last few days, Dean had been more than glad of his scheduled day off. Coffee, nap, Netflix, repeat. Sorted. Racing about in an ambulance may have been high octane stuff but sometimes a guy just needed to switch off and chill and he’d been looking forward to doing just that.

So, needless to say it hadn’t been a welcome phone call that had roused him from his favourite spot on the couch when he was only half way through the first episode of his well planned binge. It became altogether less welcome when it quickly transpired that he was going to have to spend his day defending himself to the tribunal from hell, also known as Alistair and his cronies. He was tempted to tell them where to go, but unfortunately he was fairly confident that they could come up with cruel and unusual ways to punish him that made their interrupting of ‘The Wire’ look like a welcome reprieve.

It was with a slight headache and a very bad mood that he finally pulled into the hospital car park, muttering a few choice threats toward the powers that had summoned him.

Alistair and Azazel were not exactly the company he’d been hoping for when he’d briefly checked his messages that morning. After wondering how on earth he’d become popular enough to rack up 27 of the damn things, he’d spent about three seconds working out that none of them were from Cas and another five wondering how the hell Azazel had got hold of his number. The rest languished, unopened.

He climbed out of his car with a reluctance he usually associated with early Monday mornings and shut the door behind him with a thud just firm enough to let Baby know that he wasn’t happy.

“Dean!”

A shout of his name in the distance had him rubbing his eyes in an attempt to look a little more awake before staring blearily out toward the hospital itself to see who had called him. He blinked. He stared again, trying to work out if his eyes were deceiving him. _What the?_

Castiel was running toward him as though he was starring in every Nicholas Sparks film ever made all at once and, however much Dean would deny ever having watched a single one of them, there wasn’t time to even begin to consider his movie genre of choice before the Omega was on him.

“ _Dean.”_

** Castiel **

The first thought to strike Cas (once his heart had stopped trying to thump straight out of his chest and end his humiliating attempt at seduction in one messy, ill advised, not to mention _damp_ fell swoop) was that Dean was either borderline telepathic, or seriously into him. He hoped it was the latter, not least because he was used to thinking extremely unclean thoughts around Dean at all times and there were certain potential uses for the cord of his favourite fluffy dressing gown that he wasn’t ready to share. Not yet, anyway.

Whether he was acting in accordance with Cas’s master plan or not, Dean was doing an excellent job of convincing the watchers at the windows that everything he had said was true. Strong hands came to rest on his back, pulling him tightly against his Alpha as the taller man made use of his advantage to deepen the kiss. Cas’s own hands clenched on air, his brain refusing to form a single coherent thought as Dean’s lips worked furiously against his own. _Yes,_ this was what he craved. What he hadn’t been able to stop thinking of since he’d come back to himself earlier that day with nothing but an empty bed and sore muscles to remind him of what had passed between the two of them.

Cas couldn’t help the whimper that escaped him all of a sudden when Dean moved to pin him against the Impala’s side door. Dean hesitated for a second, his eyes betraying his question.

_Did I hurt you?_

He wanted to scream _No._ and _Please_ and _I swear to God I will replace your favourite mix tape with the Spice Girls if you stop now_ but his mouth couldn’t quite seem to make any of those word shaped things that he needed. Plan B it was, then.

Dean’s gasp as his hand slipped below the waist of the Alpha’s scrubs sent shivers of anticipation coursing through him. He knew that sound; knew how it sounded half-stifled against the curve of his neck, how it sounded when Dean’s lips were fused with his own. And that little moan? The one that escaped as Cas’s fingers curled around his prize? He wanted to hear it again and again and again.

“Take me home, Alpha.” He whispered, gently squeezing his fingers around Dean’s rapidly hardening length. “Take me home, _now_.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter One, picking up at the very beginning, will be up soon. If you liked, please comment. Comments make Balthazar muse and bunny Abaddon happy.


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